Some Things Change
by Idream3223
Summary: Eric Northman has loved Sookie Stackhouse since he was eleven and she was eight. He thought that he would have more time to let her know what she meant to him, but a tragic event in an alternate universe has changed the landscape of Eric's future. How far will he go to let her know the secrets of his heart?
1. My Sweet Sookie

**Some Things Change**

 **1.** **My Sweet Sookie**

 ** _New York City, 1932_**

The sounds of children playing echoed in the street behind him as Eric Northman dropped his keys when he tried to open the door to his office at Northman & Northman. The investment business had dropped off severally since the crash of the market a few years before. He really only had one valuable client left, and she was due here in the next few minutes.

The last time he had seen her was at the funeral of her grandfather Earl who had passed nearly five years before. It had been a somber day and though he had wanted to comfort her, his grandfather Appius had accompanied him to the service. He had never approved of Sookie nor any kindness that Eric shown for her. Eric had been unsure what to say in any case, so he had kept his distance.

Picking up his keys and jiggling the door to get it open he went in and set about making coffee. His pleasure at finding the precious beans made him smile. Sookie adored coffee and though he was at a loss as to how to show her, his only desire in the world was to see her happy. Starting the fire in the wood stove that heated his offices he placed the pot on the stove and took a deep breath to calm his racing heart. He moved to his desk and opened the top drawer to pull out his most prized possession, telegrams from Sookie from all over the world.

They had met for the first time right here in this office when he was eleven and she was eight. Earl Stackhouse had approached Appius about having Northman & Northman take on a small portion of his massive fortune to manage. Despite years of wheedling and begging Earl had never revealed his true worth to the Northman's making it plain that he was cautious, downright distrustful even, of someone who was more interested in his net worth than in shaking his hand and looking him directly in the eye. Despite that, he and Appius had become friends in a way. Probably because Appius valued the dollar above all things and he was sure that Earl Stackhouse had plenty of those.

Little Sookie had accompanied her grandfather to that first meeting. Eric had been there because his grandfather insisted that he learn the business at his knee as soon as he was old enough to count to a thousand without stopping or hesitating. He had been sitting at his desk in the corner of the room when they came in. When he glanced up expecting another dull adult discussion about investments he had gotten his first look at Miss Sookie Stackhouse.

Her blond hair was perfectly curled with large blue bow in it that matched her dress. Her pink lips had curled into a cat like smile when she saw him in the corner and she had made a bee line to his side. "I'm Sookie," she had said curtsying, her manners impeccable despite the mischievous glint in her eye.

"Eric," he had answered, sounding slightly breathless, forgetting for a moment to return her greeting with a slight bow from the waist, his eyes never leaving her face. When she smiled at him it felt like the sun had come out his dusty old office. She had immediately pulled up a chair and started talking a mile a minute.

As Earl and Appius spoke of money and return rates on investment Sookie told him that she had traveled to Egypt last year with her grandfather to see the pyramids and do some excavation for the British government. The year before she had been in the Dakota foothills here in America with Earl when they were excavating the Indian burial grounds there. In a few months they were leaving for Africa on a commission from the British Museum again to look for evidence of a lost tribe.

Eric was captivated by her every strange word. Her life sounded so much more exciting than his, trapped here with sums, figures and the dust that floated lazily through the sunbeams that came in through the window in the late afternoon.

More than once he had been awakened with a hard knock on the back of his head from his grandfather's cane for drifting off in the afternoons when the office was warm and he was full from lunch. Appius had soon gained control of his napping as he did everything else, with cold practical thought. He stopped feeding Eric lunch. The growling of his stomach kept his alert through the whole afternoon now. The result was that his latest growth spurt had left him rail thin causing the children in his neighborhood to refer to him as Scarecrow Northman.

There was no way he was telling her about _that_.

So he had said nothing on the rare occasions she paused for breath, but she had still smiled at him kindly despite his awkwardness at holding up his end of the conversation. That day was the beginning. When they would visit Eric and Sookie would retire to his small corner in his grandfather's office and she would tell him fabulous stories about her adventures. He looked forward to her visits more than anything else in his small world and she never disappointed him. Sometimes she brought candies for them to share as they talked and he couldn't help but think they were not nearly as sweet as the girl herself.

He kept his secret of how much she meant to himself but Appius had been watching them carefully and knew that Eric was quite taken with little Miss Stackhouse. On their final visit to the office before their departure for Africa Sookie had promised Eric that she would send him a telegram each month she was away. She had hugged him before they left, hurling her tiny body at his tall bony frame with a force that had knocked him back a step.

If he had had time to think about it he never would have hugged her back, but she was leaving and it was all happening so fast he didn't have time to think. He just wrapped his long thin arms around her and buried his face in her tiny neck taking a deep breath. The scent of her washed over him and felt his heart break a little that he would likely never see her again. "I will send them, I promise!" she had whispered in his ear breathy and excited to face this new adventure. "I wish you could come, too!" He had bit his tongue until it bled to keep from begging to do just that, and held her to him that much tighter.

It was the first time he had ever wanted anything that much in all his eleven years.

As soon as the door closed behind her Appius had pounced. "Eric Andrew Northman! I will not have you making a fool out of yourself over that gutter trash, I don't care how much money her grandfather has!" Eric had turned on his grandfather with rage filling his entire body.

"Stop talking about her that way!" His outburst gained him a caning that left it impossible to lay down comfortably for nearly a week. Appius had ranted every day of that week about how his good Northman blood would never be sullied with the likes of that Stackhouse slut. Eric would clench his little fists and hold his tongue.

They were just words and they couldn't hurt him if he didn't let them.

Appius had been away at club business lunch when the first telegram came. Eric had signed for it, his first piece of correspondence! When he was alone he had clutched it to his chest and nearly jumped for joy to hear from her. He had to make himself calm down because he was afraid in his excitement that he would accidentally tear the telegram if he tried to open it when his hands were shaking so much. Finally, he calmed enough to open it.

 ** _Africa is hot STOP_**

 ** _We leave town for the dig site tomorrow STOP_**

 ** _Wish you were here STOP_**

 ** _Miss you STOP_**

 ** _Sookie_**

He wiped a tear as he thought of her and wished that he was there, too. By the time his grandfather returned from his lunch there was no evidence that anything out of the ordinary had occurred. As the months passed Eric was able to keep his secret from Appius but something was happening inside him. Every day he missed her more. Every telegram he got he longed to say something back.

Somehow the distance between them made it feel possible for him to tell her all the things that he had never been able to say when she was here. He started writing her letters. He had no way to get them to her but that felt right, too, because he could reveal himself without worrying of what she would think. Sometimes he imagined what she would say if she ever got them, mostly though he focused on opening himself up to her, sharing all the secrets of his heart.

He kept her telegrams along with his letters behind a loose board in his threadbare room at his grandfathers' house. True to her word for the next two years she had sent him a telegram each month. They were always too short and only hinted at what was happening in her world. It was almost three years before he saw her again. She came and went from his life like the seasons, always connected through her telegrams no matter where she was in the world always right there, but never close enough for his satisfaction.

Over the years he learned the business from Appius and when the market had crashed in 1929 leaving them barely enough money to not lose their home and the offices, Appius had taken ill. Now he rarely left the house. There was little business to transact so he left it to Eric with the admonition that even he couldn't mess up something that no longer existed. The irony wasn't lost on Eric that the one man who his grandfather held with the greatest contempt was the one reason they weren't out on the streets, even though Earl Stackhouse had passed two years before the crash.

He had been meticulous in his investments and careful to make sure that his granddaughter was secure in her future. To everyone's surprise but Eric's she had elected to carry on his work. Since Earl's passing she had traveled the world working on commissions for archeological digs picking up where he left off. She still sent Eric a telegram once a month no matter where she was and they still made him smile and feel just as excited as the first one had when he was eleven.

Now he was twenty-seven and Sookie was twenty-four. She had been part of his life for more than half of it. When his eyes opened in the morning he wondered where she was and what she was doing. When they closed at night he said a small prayer for her safety. He still wrote her letters, though with less frequency and with more adult thoughts. Eric was alone, lonely even perhaps but other than Sookie he had never had a friend.

When his grandfather bothered to talk to him at all he would make comments how it was time for Eric to marry and produce an heir. As he had for past nine years he ignored his grandfather's words. There was only one woman he wanted to marry and it was the one woman who he could never have. He had nothing to offer her. He was all but broke, his only funds were what she paid him and he had never in all their years actually answered a telegram. In fact, in her presence he became that same quiet eleven year old boy that was so completely overwhelmed by her he could barely utter a word.

The coffee starting to boil jarring him from his reverie. He put the telegrams back in the drawer and moved to get them two cups. He had just set them out when he heard the outer door open. Forcing himself to take a deep breath first he turned to greet Sookie Stackhouse for the first time in five years. At the sight of her his mouth fell open in shock.

She was wearing trousers! And was that a bull whip in her hand?! And a men's fedora on her head?! Eric closed his eyes and took another breath, sure that he was dreaming or mad. When he opened them again she was still standing there in _those_ clothes, with that _whip_ and that _hat_ and that _smile_. _My God, that smile!_

Feeling behind him for a chair he fell into it hard and continued to stare at the woman who had appeared in his office dressed more for an outing in the jungle than a business meeting to discuss her finances. His heart was racing, his mind with wanting her turn around so he could see her backside in those trousers, and maybe something about that whip but he wasn't ready to process that thought yet.

"You like?" she flashed him the siren version of her eight year old pink lipped smile and pirouetted for him. He gasped when he did indeed catch a flash of her backside of those trousers. When she turned she had let the whip unfurl on the floor giving it a loud crack when she was facing him again. He shifted in his seat and quickly crossed his legs to hide his body's response. The mischievousness that had filled her eyes at eight was replaced now by all the fires and temptations of Heaven and Hell. He could those eyes them burning him wherever they touched his skin. He shifted again, crossing and uncrossing his legs.

He couldn't pour coffee like this! He couldn't even move without shaming himself!

"I got the idea from this archaeologist I ran into last year. Professor Something Jones, I wasn't really listening. I think he was looking for the Lost Ark? Maybe a crystal skull, I forget. It doesn't matter," she said waving her hand dismissively. "The point is that he had a great look for the field so, I stole it!" She giggled then, refolded her whip and moved to get the coffee pot off the stove. "You remembered!" she gushed as she poured coffee for us both, returned the pot the stove before sitting across from him. She picked up her cup and started to blow on the coffee, her pursed lips making him shift again in his chair. She snickered.

"Well, despite the lack of compliments I can tell that you _did_ notice," she purred at him.

 _What had happened to my sweet Sookie?_ Completely unsure of what was happening he fell back to the high ground. "Miss Stackhouse, I believe you wanted to discuss your investments," he said trying to assert some control into the situation.

"No," she said and then took a sip of her coffee.

"No?" he repeated.

"No," she said again. He cleared his throat, his eyebrow going up.

"Then to what do I owe the honor of this visit, Miss Stackhouse?"

"Sookie," she said, looking at him again intently. "My name is Sookie, and just once Eric Northman I want to hear you say it."

"Sookie," he said barely above a whisper.

"Again, please."

"Sookie. Sookie Stackhouse. Sookie Adele Stackhouse." Her eyes fluttered shut and her tongue came out to swipe her bottom lip slowly. She opened them again and pinned him to the chair.

"Eric Andrew Northman," she said in the same quiet reverent tone he had used when speaking her name. He barely managed to stifle to moan that rose up in his chest. Not thinking he reached for his cup and took a big mouth full. A second later he spit it out screaming from the burn on his tongue caused by the near boiling beverage.

The next thing he knew she was right beside him, telling him to open up and let her see how bad the burn was. He did as she asked. She moved to get him a glass of water returning to his side immediately. "Here take some of this and hold it in your mouth." He was sure that his mouth was still hurting but she was practically sitting his lap, her hair was down and she had removed her hat. One breath took him back to the hug she had given him all those years ago, doing more to soothe him than any water ever could. "This isn't going at all like I had hoped," she said, sitting back on the arm of his chair and sighing.

"I had planned to come in here, wow you with my outfit and then ask you…" she stopped then. Sookie never stopped talking! He opened his mouth to ask her what was wrong, and found himself choking on the water he had been holding on his mouth. Coughing uncontrollably he rose from the chair trying to expel the water while he caught his breath he wound up halfway across the office, hand leaning on the wall as he struggled for air.

Again, she was right there, inserting herself between his long lean frame and the wall, her breasts were almost touching his chest, a thought that was not helping his breathing. "Breathe, baby, just breathe." She reached up and ran her hand through his hair to soothe him. He was getting agitated and would have probably yelled at her that he knew how to breathe if he could have figured out how to get enough air in his lungs to speak.

"Did (cough) you (cough, cough) just (cough) call me baby?!"

"Maybe," she said, her face completely serious. He pushed back off the wall and away from her, moving a few steps back, he doubled over resting his hands on his knees as he started to get his coughing under control. Finally, he looked up at her.

"What the hell, Sookie?" She frowned.

"What the hell, what, Eric?"

"You, come in here dressed like _that_ and call me ' _baby_ '! What the hell, Sookie? Who are you and where is my sweet Sookie?"

"Your ' _sweet Sookie_?" she asked stalking toward him now. He wanted to run, but he held his ground and stood to his full height of six four, glaring down at her from nearly a foot above her. "So, I'm your ' _sweet Sookie'_ , huh, Eric?" She was purring again and it made him just as unsure as it did before. He blurted out the first thing that came to his mind.

"No, you're not! That's the point. I don't know who you are or what you want if you didn't come here to talk about your finances." She closed the rest of the distance between them, pressed her body tight to his and pulled his head down to hers. The moment their lips touched Eric split into two different men.

One was dancing like he was eleven and getting his first telegram from the prettiest girl he had ever seen, the other was Appius Northman's grandson whose head was filled with words like gutter trash and harlot. He put his hands on her shoulders to push her way while his lips pressed closer to hers. She moaned and opened her mouth for him. His tongue danced with hers while his body closed the small distance his hands had created between them.

He had dreamed of this for so long.

Maybe he was dreaming now? She nipped his lip with her teeth, making him moan and deepen the kiss. The slight sting of her bite assured him he was not dreaming. This was really happening.

This was incredible. Every fiber of his being told him this was incredible.

This was wrong. All the voices in his head, Appius being the loudest, told him this was wrong.

His hands won the battle and shoved her away. "STOP!" he roared at her.

Her face flushed and tears filled her eyes. She fought them back. Sookie might be soft hearted but she didn't show it to just anyone. She was smart that way. She took a deep shuddering breath and returned to her seat, picking up her coffee again as though the most life altering thing that had ever happened to him had _not_ just happened.

"Sookie, what the HELL?" he screamed again.

"Why am I your ' _sweet Sookie'_? Not once, not ever did you answer me when I wrote to you. How am I anything to you at all?"

"Sookie, I didn't have the money to send telegrams."

"You could have answered my letters, Eric. Paper and postage are not that much. I even sent some money to you to cover it but you never said a word."

"What?" He ran his hand through his hair. She dropped her head.

"It doesn't matter anymore," she said to her cup. Then she placed it back on the table. "Look, I came here to tell you that I am leaving for Greece next week. I am leading an excavation at Rhodes. I wanted to ask you to come with me. I can see now that I was wrong to think that you might be interested in that…sort of thing. I'm sorry to have taken up so much of your time. I won't bother you again."

His head was reeling, his heart was breaking, his mouth was hurting and he had no idea what the hell was happening here. Just before her hand touched the door she stopped and turned back to look at him one last time. "I wish things could have been different for us, Eric. I wish…you had just once said something back to me. I'm sorry I mistook your silence for shyness when it was clearly a lack of interest in me."

She walked out the door.


	2. Letters

1\. Letters

Eric was in a daze as he tried to process what had happened with him and Sookie. None of it made any sense! The strange clothes, the strange words and actions! And she wanted him to go to Greece with her? Why? Replaying the conversation he realized she had never told him why she was going to Rhodes. Obviously to find something, but what?

 _She'll come back,_ he told himself. _She'll come back before she leaves and this will have been some misunderstanding that she will explain. A relapse of the malaria she had picked up at fifteen? Some new madness she had been exposed to on some far away dig on some godforsaken country._

 _My sweet Sookie would never leave me!_

 _She called me baby! She ran her hands through my hair and called me baby, and then she KISSED ME!_

Eric was lost in his thoughts for days. Before he realized it the date of her departure had come and gone and she had not contacted him again. He regretted not reaching out to her. He spent hours berating himself for not contacting her and then all over again for thinking he should have in the first place. _SHE was the one who had changed! She was the one who kissed me._

It was Appius who finally pulled him out his head and back into the world. He had been shoving his dinner around the plate thinking about how it had been almost two months and not a word. She always sent a telegram once a month when she was away. He could count on it like he could count on the spring to follow the winter. She never let him down.

 _Not until you let her down_ , his internal voice said, making him wince in the face of this awful truth that he could no longer deny.

"Eric Andrew Northman, what is wrong with you? You have been walking around in a fog for months!" Eric put his fork down and looked at his grandfather.

"Did you hide Sookie's letters to me?" Appius stared at him coldly and for just a moment Eric hoped that his grandfather would lie to him.

"Yes."

"I want them."

"What makes you think I kept them? I burned them as soon as they came in."

"No, you didn't. You wouldn't do that."

"Oh, what makes you say that?"

"Because you would have lost another chance to hurt me if you had burned them." Appius chuckled.

"You learned something from me after all didn't you?"

"Yes, I did. I learned that when you depend on someone who is soulless to care for you, that you will only be hurt. You know what else I learned?"

"What's that, my boy?"

"That you, Appius now depend on _me_ to care for _you_." The smile slowly left his grandfather's face.

"In my study, top right drawer. "

Eric read most of the night. The first letter had come within two months of her first telegram. She told him about what was happening and how she had met some children from the local village and learned to play some of their native games. She said she would teach him if he wanted to learn when she got back. All he had to do was ask, but of course, he never had.

At first he was angry. He wanted to believe that he would have asked if he had known, but the truth was he had known about the telegrams and had never once said anything to her about them either. He could hardly credit the notion that he would have acted any differently about the letters. She had been right, it was shyness. It made his chest ache to hear her words over and over that he was not interested in her. No matter how foolish he had been in failing to show her what she meant to him nothing could be further from the truth.

He watched her grow up in every letter, her girlish scrawls becoming the solid neat script that matched the woman he now knew. In her letters she told him so many things, such things that his head was spinning! Not only were there tales of adventure that made his hands clench in fear for her safety but as she grew there were deeply personal, womanly secrets that she shared with him. At times he blushed at her boldness and others he felt the man in him respond to her words leaving him aching and breathless on the edge of his own secret dreams.

When he got to the last letter dated just six months ago he realized fully what a terrible mistake he had made in his office that day before she walked out.

 ** _Dear Eric,_**

 ** _I've been writing that for as long as I can remember. You're like my secret diary. You keep all my dreams and hopes safe for me in these letters I send you from all over the world. It might seem strange to you, but you have been with me every step I took, no matter where I was you were with me. I hope that someday I can show you some of the wonders that I have seen and that together we might discover new ones, better ones._**

 ** _When I get back I am going to come and see you. I want to talk about the future, our future. I don't want to do this anymore without you here to hold me at night and listen to me whisper my secrets to you._**

 ** _I hope that when I see you, you will finally be able to break through the walls you keep around your heart and let me in because in all the world there is no other place I would rather be than with you, Eric Northman._**

 ** _Love, Sookie._**

He thought about it for three days and then he packed and bought a steamer ticket across the ocean. It had cost him almost every penny of his life savings but he had to make this right. The day before he was set to leave a telegram came for him.

His face alight with joy as he signed for it heading immediately to his room to read it. She had forgiven him! It was perfect timing since he was headed for her the very next day. He read the telegram twice and then a third time before it fell from his hand fluttering slowly to the floor.

 ** _Sookie Stackhouse disappeared from Rhodes three weeks ago while on night dig STOP_**

 ** _Local authorities have found no trace and believe her dead STOP_**

 ** _Her attorney will be in touch about her estate. STOP_**

That night Eric dreamed of Sookie.

She was wearing a long flowing white dress. They were sitting on a hill above a city made of stone having a picnic. "That's Knossos," she said as she ate grapes in the summer sun. "According to legend the Minotaur roams the Labyrinth beneath the city awaiting tribute of fourteen virgins from Aegeus."

"Do you think he's really down there?" Eric asked, reaching for a grape.

"Maybe," she said frowning. "I think I may find out before I get out of here." He remembered then, she was dead. He grabbed her and kissed her, too overjoyed to see her to remember that he didn't know how to act around her. After a second she kissed him back. Then she pushed him away. "What the HELL, Eric?" she fumed.

"That's my line, Sookie," he smiled at her. She tried not to smile back but she lost it after a moment. Then her arms were around his neck and she was holding him close to her.

"Eric, I was at the dig site and something happened. There was some kind of explosion and I woke up here in Ancient Greece. I can't figure out how to get back to you!"

"Are you well?" He checked her for obvious damage.

"For now, but I was kidnapped from Rhodes and brought to Knossos. They were going to sell me to the brothel but I managed to snag a position with the Bull Leapers." She wasn't making any sense.

"A brothel?!"

"There's no time. Learn everything you can about Minoan culture. I haven't been able to confirm it but I think it's around 1500BC here. Start there." The ground shook beneath them.

"Is that an earthquake, Sookie?" She nodded, looking scared for the first time since he had met her.

"Or possibly a volcano." She shrugged. "I was still studying when whatever happened, happened."

"Sookie, this is a dream, but at least I can tell"-

"This is NOT a dream! This is real! I am alive in the past."

"You're dead, Sookie!"

"I will be if you don't get your big ass in gear and come save me, Northman!"

"How am I supposed to get to 1500BC, woman?"

"Ask the vampire at the ruins in Rhodes. I dream of her nearly every night. I think she is lost, too." He started floating away from her then as he woke up. "Come find me, Eric. I need you!"

"I will find you, Sookie! I love you!" He woke himself up screaming. For an hour he sat on the side of his bed running his hands through his hair taking deep breaths. Was it true, or did he just need it to be? Could he live with not knowing? In the end he decided not.

As soon as the city library opened he went in and stole all the history books he could find on Minoan culture, then he boarded the ship that would take him to Rhodes. As he watched the New York skyline grow distant he promised himself that he would find her, no matter where or when she was. Then, then he would tell her all the things he should have told her before.

He rationalized that it was possible that if she were alive then she would no longer want him after what she saw as his rejection of her in his office. If so, he would accept that. She had waited so long for him to show her his heart, she deserved to see it.

"I will find you," he said out loud, causing the other passengers near him to look at him oddly. "I will show you, Sookie Stackhouse that some things change."


	3. Journey

1\. Journey

Eric could only afford a small state room that he was forced to share with a young flamboyant black Frenchman traveling under the name Lafayette the Magnificent. He was a medium, or least he claimed to be, which made him all the rage at dinner parties and salons.

As he rambled on Eric learned that until very recently Lafayette had been in the sole employ of Mrs. Maude Jefferson, a widow from the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Her husband had made a fortune in steel before the crash and rather than investing it had apparently found some other way to keep his finances secure. She had been left relatively unscathed by the Black Tuesday.

"She threw me out, can you believe it? I lived with her for six months and channeled that wind bag for her each evening only to have her throw me out when he finally revealed that he did keep a lady on the side and that Madame Maude should see to her care from his remaining fortune!" Lafayette was pacing through the cabin, waving his arms back and forth dramatically as he spoke with a thick French accent making it impossible at times for Eric to understand him clearly.

He was sitting on his bunk, eyes large and almost frightened from the impassioned display before him. Appius never showed any emotion but anger. Part of Eric was waiting on this tirade to turn violent and then be directed at him. It was the only thing he had ever known. Lafayette stopped pacing and looked at him sharply.

"Darling, I am a cream puff compared to what you will face to find your woman again. You had best learn to stand up and be the tall, strong, brave man the spirits tell me you can be, or you will never even make it off this ship, let alone to Knossos!" Eric's mouth fell open. Lafayette laughed and sat down on his own bunk, crossing his legs and fanning himself with a large oriental looking fan. "Close your mouth, man. Someone might take it as an invitation." Eric closed his mouth.

"An invitation to what?" he stammered, looking at his cabin mate cautiously.

"That's just the thing," Lafayette said, smiling at him, "One can never tell." Eric ran his hand through his hair and tried to think about how to find out what Lafayette knew about 'his woman and Knossos' without giving too much away on his side. Appius had taught him about grifters who trick you into saying something that they take and spin into looking like they know things about you that they couldn't possibly know. Before he could speak Lafayette looked up at the ceiling of the cabin and rolled his eyes dramatically.

"Hush, now!" he said as though someone were there and talking. "If this one wants to know something he has to ask us. Until then, quiet!" He turned back to Eric. "Is there something you want to know?" There were a million things, but Eric remained cautious.

"You said something about Knossos?" Lafayette resumed fanning himself.

"Yes, yes, you are headed to Greece, are you not?"

"It hardly takes a knowledge of the beyond to know that," Eric said gesturing at the ship around them raising an eyebrow at his companion. Lafayette laughed.

"True, this is true, but this ship will not take you to _the past_."

"Past what?" Eric pressed needing to know if there was really anything to know here. Lafayette's smile disappeared and his eyes rolled back into his head showing only white. Then he spoke with a deeper voice than he had before making the hair stand up on Eric's neck.

"The worlds are like a spiral unending. Something has happened that should not have been allowed. An explosion that left the worlds unbalanced. People who should not be here are here now. People who should be here have been knocked from their rightful holds. Balance must be restored!"

"I don't understand," Eric whispered.

"You will. You will find your love in time and together you can restore the balance." Lafayette's eyes closed and he collapsed back onto his bunk breathing heavily. Eric moved to his side to make sure he was all right. When his eyes opened again and he saw Eric above him he screamed and tried to get away.

"Don't touch me! Get away!" Eric moved back to his bunk and waited for Lafayette to regain control of himself. Finally he looked at Eric, the fear in his eyes making Eric shiver. "Let us make a deal, you and I, yes?" Eric nodded. "You will go your way on this journey and I will go mine. Whatever it is about you that has the spirits in such an uproar you will keep to yourself and ask me no more questions. Agreed?" Not knowing what else to do in the face of this strangeness Eric nodded.

Lafayette, left the cabin shortly after that. Eric felt a curious sense of disappointment and relief.

The journey from New York to Greece was billed at ten days aboard the steamer. Eric used every moment to look through his stolen library books during the day. He found himself feeling slightly grateful to Appius for his insistence that a well-rounded education consisted of Greek and Latin as well as sums and business law. His Greek was rusty but serviceable. His history was spotty but it started to come back as he read more in the books.

The Bull Leapers of Knossos were believed to be an elite cult that served and worshipped the bull god and the snake goddess by putting on displays of athleticism and gymnastics around live bulls for the worship and entertainment of the Minoan court. It was highly dangerous and glamourous work, the group being revered by all on Knossos for their bravery and their fealty to the great bull.

 _This is what my Sookie is doing?_ Eric had paused in his reading to see her leaping through the air in in front of large and angry bull who was charging straight at her. _They were going to sell me to a brothel, but I snagged a position with the Bull Leapers._ The image triggered something in his mind from one of her letters. He dug in his pocket where he kept them next to his heart. When he saw which letter it was he was grateful that Lafayette was gone for the evening, with no plans to return, he had grandly announced on his way out.

 ** _Dear Eric,_**

 ** _There is so much I want to share that I hardly know where to start. Most of it is completely improper and I should not even think to write it down, let alone write it to you! But you are the heart of me, Eric Northman. I don't know how or what it means, only that if I were to tell anyone this I would choose to tell you above all others, impropriety be damned. Perhaps I feel this way because Grandfather is so kind and supportive of me. Perhaps I feel this way because I am "running amok" as some of my Grandfather's friends like to tell him. "Stackhouse, this is no way to raise a lady!" I never speak, for I would not shame him knowingly before his friends but in my heart I ask, "Who said I ever wanted to be a lady?"_**

 ** _As far as I can tell being a lady means that you care for nothing but fashion and tea and standing around while life happens to someone else. Who would choose that? I am almost sixteen now, or "of marrying age" my Grandfather's friends tell him. "Who will want a ruffian who runs and plays among the livestock for his bride?" I laugh when I am alone at their foolishness. There is only one I would think to take for husband and he is far away and has never given any indication that he feels the same for me. I hope someday he will…no, if I am to be bold then I shall be so with all my words. I hope someday that_** ** _you_** ** _will Eric, for it is only you that I would ever have as husband._**

 ** _Their latest tirade was sparked by my playing with the village children by swinging from the horns of the livestock as they do. It is great fun and takes some nerve. The cows are old and thin but when they run at you, you must stand your ground until the last possible moment and then somersault into the air, grab their horns and vault onto their backs as they gallop by. I am just as good as the strongest boy in the tribe! Oh, Eric, I wish you could see me! I wish you were here to do it, too!_**

He felt his hands clench again as they had the first time he had read this. Pointlessly frustrated and worried for her safety over something that had happened almost ten years ago. Part of him admired her bravery, too. Remembering the rest of the letter he skipped ahead to the part that left him affected in such a drastically different way.

 ** _Tonight as I returned from bathing in the river I heard sounds coming from bushes near the path. Concerned that someone was hurt I moved closer and found, oh, I can't believe I am going to tell you this, but how can I not? There is no one else I would even think of telling! There was a man and woman in the bushes there and the sounds they were making were not from pain, it was something else entirely! He kissed her, Eric! He kissed her like I have thought of kissing…you. Her arms were around him and his every touch made her moan with pleasure and need. I am ashamed to say I stayed too long and saw them at their most intimate. I saw them join together and the pleasure their bodies gave each other, the sounds they made. I wanted that, too. I wanted to feel that with you, Eric._**

Eric gasped out into the empty cabin as he felt his body respond to her words. At twenty-seven they laid him bare. If he had read them at eighteen he would have exploded into a thousand pieces. Eric lay back on his bunk resting his head on his folded arm as he closed his eyes and thought of how that night might have gone if he had been there with her when she came back from the river, skin damp and body high on another couple's passion.

Eric had never been with a woman before, despite Appius' best efforts and plans. Every Saturday from the time he was eighteen until the crash that had left them near destitute he had given him a fist of cash and sent him to his friend Arlene. Unbeknownst to Appius Eric and Arlene had an arrangement of their own. He paid her to tell Appius that the deed was done and then he spent the afternoon at the moving picture shows returning home just before dinner.

His body was anxious about those matters, true, but his heart was filled with only Sookie. If that was to be something he experienced, he only wanted to experience that with her. He learned to sublimate his needs through self-gratification. His mind filled with her smile, imagining her touch on his body. His deepest thoughts he wrote to her as well, in the letters that he had never sent.

In his mind he saw her, hair wet and down on her shoulders, droplets of water on her smooth skin. She came to him and took him in her hand, slowly pumping up and down as she told him what she had seen in the bushes between hot breathy kisses. He had experienced that kiss now for himself and it was so easy to imagine her touch. She pushed him down to the floor and guided him inside her, whispering his name as she took him into her, squeezing him to tight.

His orgasm brought him back to his bunk on the ship, his body shaking from the release and the emotion reeling through him. He turned his face into his pillow and tried to fight back his tears of remorse at how he had behaved in his office when she came to him.

 _I'm so sorry, Sookie_ , he thought before the peace of sleep eased his aching heart.


	4. Ruins

1\. Ruins

Eric sometimes spent his days on deck where the light was better to read by. He was deep into the recounting of a spring fertility celebration that featured a show by the Bull Leapers when he found a photo of a fresco that had been uncovered in 1927 on a dig led by Sir Francis Athelby. The caption beneath it simply said, Female Bull Leaper, 1500BC.

His heart nearly stopped in his chest when he saw that it was his Sookie.

She was there. She was alive in 1500BC. No, wait that meant that she was dead now after all. Dead for almost 3500 years? How could that be when he had just kissed her less than two months ago? His mind struggled to rationalize and connect the impossible, to impose order over this madness that had become his life from the moment he had gotten the telegram telling him she was dead.

He looked at the fresco again, just to make sure that he had seen what he thought he had seen. It still looked like Sookie. But does that mean it is her? No. Yes. Maybe? He put his hands over his eyes and took some deep breaths.

 _I have to face the possibility that I am losing my mind._

It was a sobering thought at first and then after a moment it became a freeing one. Sitting back, he folded her arms across his chest and leaned his head back in the sun. Its warmth helped to center him and organize his thoughts.

Was it crazy to spend every last penny he had on a trip around the world for a woman he loved? _Not to me,_ the answer rose up from inside him. _Not for my Sookie._

Was it crazy to think that she had somehow been swept through time to some distant and ancient land where she waited now, still alive, waiting to for him to find her? And that somehow he would do that, he would find her? _Not to me_ , came the answer again. _Not for my Sookie._ From that unshakeable certainty more came from deep inside him.

 _When you committed to this path you told yourself that you couldn't accept living the rest of your life and not knowing one way or the other. So, if you can't make it work in your head, then you need to let that go and focus on the finding out everything you can. When this is done you will either have her in your arms or you will know that she is forever beyond your grasp be it in this world or some other._

A few deep breaths later he leaned his long frame back toward the table holding the book he now believed showed him Sookie in an ancient Minoan fresco. After that any doubt he had about the truth of his sanity was squashed without mercy. Part of moving forward was choosing a path and pressing on. Turning in useless circles of doubt would do him no good now.

As Eric watched the shoreline of a foreign country come slowly closer it occurred to him for the first time that he had never left New York City before. It was Sookie who had charged out to exotic places doing new and unusual things. He had envied her, wanted to be with her since he was eleven, but as the shore came slowly closer he felt his anxiety rising. Would he know what to do? Would he know what to say? In the dream she had told him to find the vampire at the ruins in Rhodes that she would help him.

The rational part of him that attributed this to being simply a dream believed that Sookie had said vampire because of all the Saturday afternoons he had spent at the movies. He had confessed once to Sookie in the letters he never sent that he was drawn toward films like Nosferatu and Dracula. He also liked The Mummy and Frankenstein. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde reminded him a little too much of Appius for him to truly enjoy the film, but still he would have chosen it over most others of the day.

There was something about the supernatural world that drew him in and held him like no other. He wondered if this was something that she would understand or if she would see him as childish in his film preferences.

The irrational part of his brain that had been driving since he robbed the library and boarded the ship for Greece believed that when he got to her dig site he would find the vampire that she had told him about, and that she would be able to help him. Whether she would or not was not clear. If indeed vampires were real then his film research indicated that they would help if there is something in it for them.

He would just have to figure out how to spin the whole situation so that the vampire saw it as advantageous to not eat him, share whatever information there was to be had, and then to tell him how to travel back to where Sookie was. He swallowed the lump in his throat.

Piece of cake.

After arriving in Greece it had taken him another seven days to reach Rhodes. In the town he had been able to determine where the dig site had been and managed to arrange a ride out for first thing the next morning.

That night he dreamed again of Sookie.

She with a dark haired man and she was dressed in a manner that made what she had worn to his office seem sedate. Eric knew from his studies that the preferred female dress in Crete 3500 years ago had been a full length skirt that flared out around the legs, and a girdle that hooked under the breasts leaving them exposed and prominently displayed. Seeing Sookie like this made his ghostly flesh harden and then spurred him to move between Sookie and the strange man that was clearly appreciating the view very much.

Eric was facing Sookie and in doing so happened to look down. Her nipples were hard and rouged a perfect pink that matched her bee stung lips. His mouth went dry with the need to taste both. It was a need second only in how much he wanted to protect her from the gaze of anyone but himself.

"King Minos," Sookie began the tone gracious and pleasing as she danced from his grasp as respectfully as possible. "My husband will be here soon and he would not appreciate my sharing of favors he considers his own," she said tactfully as she worked to keep him at a distance.

"Not even for his, King? Surely he would consider it an honor to have me bed his wife?"

"Ours is a love match, majesty. It would grieve him sorely for anyone to know my touch but him."

"A love match?" the King asked, somehow managing to sound both contemptuous and filled with envy at the same time. "Is there such a thing, truly?" Sookie nodded, holding her head high. Eric noticed then that her hair was braided with gold cord and her dress was the color of the Greek sea, a strong compliment to her pink rouge.

"Truly, we met as children. He had has held my heart since that day."

"And you his?" She hesitated, her face showing so much at once that the King took the chance to move closer, perhaps sensing a victory in that her husband not truly caring for her. Eric moved closer to her and leaned down to whisper in her ear.

"My heart has always, always been yours. Only you, Sookie." She smiled a little and he hoped she heard him. A moment later he was sure she had.

"Yes, his heart has always been mine a well." She looked so confident in his love that she glowed in the candle light of what was presumably the King's own chamber. Unfortunately, this only made her more desirable.

"And if I cared nothing for your heart or his and insisted on your body for my pleasure tonight?" She inclined her head gracefully, her eyes going to the floor but not before Eric had seen the suppressed fury in their depths.

"Great King Minos, I am but your servant. I am sure though that the people of Crete speak of you so highly and so well because you are not a king who would cuckold a loyal and faithful subject such as my husband. That is not the man they speak of in the streets of Knossos." The man puffed his chest out and stood a little taller.

"Tell me, what do they say of Minos?" Her head still down, she went on distracting him with tales of his own glory. He watched until the dream faded and daylight called him back. _Oh, Sookie, I wish I had come with you to Greece. I wish things could have been different for us, too._

All day, pressed by his dream of Minos' efforts to seduce Sookie, Eric roamed the ruins if the dig site. Praying, thinking, talking to himself, promising anything and everything to whoever could show him the way to her side. By the time that dark came despair had taken hold leaving him on the verge of tears or wanting to punch something. Hard.

He felt as though he was so close to her, yet how could that be? The doubts he had controlled came back with a vengeance pressing in and causing him to wonder if indeed has lost himself to madness.

He looked up at the full moon and whispered a last prayer, "Please." The breeze disturbed his hair when she appeared before him. Her hair was white and thin, her gaze a piercing milky white. Her grip was cold icy steel, and in the bright moonlight he could see that her only teeth were two long incisors. Two _fangs._

"We meet again, Viking," she whispered as she bit into his long neck, moaning in pleasure as his blood washed over her tongue. Vampires are real! Eric thought as blackness closed his eyes. He was too excited to be afraid.


	5. The Color of Time

1\. The Color of Time

He sat up and looked around. It was still night, the moon had barely moved so he knew he had only been unconscious a short time. His heart sped up.

Vampire!

Sookie said there was a vampire in the ruins who could help him. He stood, a little too quickly, the world spinning forcing him to sit back down. Staying down but looking around he saw her still as a statue off to his right perched on the ruins like some large bird of prey.

"How is it you are human, Viking? If you are, surely I should be, too. How comes it that you are no longer vampire?"

"I never was," Eric answered softly, afraid any movement would provoke another attack. His hand moved to his neck expecting to come back with a handful of blood but there was nothing no evidence she had attacked him.

"I healed you," she answered before he could ask.

"Can you read my mind?" he was joking, hoping to put them both at ease but his words had the opposite effect.

"Ah…Is the telepath with you?" the vampire demanded moving closer to him, sniffing the air and looking around as though she could see in some way other than with her blind eyes.

"Who?" Eric stood slowly.

"The telepath. Stackhouse. She said her name was Sookie Stackhouse."

"My Sookie is no telepath. She is an archaeologist."

"An Archaeologist? A human Viking?"

"Why do you call me that, 'Viking'?"

"Because where I am from Eric Northman is a thousand year old Viking."

"AND HE'S STILL ALIVE?" The old vampire smiled.

"He is vampire." Eric sat back down again.

"What do you mean where you are from?"

"Apparently, this is not the world I am accustomed to."

"If I am supposed to be a thousand year old Viking vampire and my Sookie is a telepath, then I suspect you are right." After a moment to process he looked at her sharply. "How did you get here?" Slowly, she sat down next to him.

"I was at a hotel in Rhodes, a city in the United States in the year 2005. It was a vampire conference. There was an explosion. I remember the sounds, the screams and the heat. Next thing I knew I was here in Rhodes, Greece in 1932. I take it that this is where you have always been, Northman?"

"Until now I didn't know for sure that there was anywhere else to be. Did you see my Sookie when you arrived here?"

"No."

"I have been dreaming of her. She told me that there was a vampire at the ruins in Rhodes that could help me get her back."

"Back from where?"

"When I dream of her she is in Knossos in 1500BC." The old vampire cackled madly.

"What's so funny?" Eric asked turning to look at her sharply.

"Life," she said and continued to laugh for some time, then she turned to him. "The worlds are like a spiral unending. Something has happened that should not have been allowed. " The hair on Eric's neck stood up again as it had when he was in the cabin with Lafayette when he had first heard those words. Without thinking he replied to her with the rest of Lafayette's message.

"An explosion that left the worlds unbalanced. People who should not be here are here now. People who should be here have been knocked from their rightful holds. Balance must be restored!" The old vampire looked like the hair might be standing on the back of her neck now.

"Clearly, other forces are helping you, human."

"I was told that I would find my love and that together we would restore the balance." The vampire thought for a while before she spoke again.

"Human, the rift between worlds is still open. I believe you can pass through it and find your lost love." Eric jumped to his feet.

"Where? Where is it? Please?" She ignored his exuberance and continued to speak slowly and thoughtfully as she worked her way through whatever puzzle her mind was consumed with.

"I tried to enter it but was rejected. As part of the event that caused this change I am locked here until the change is corrected. It is possible as well that if I am here in her world that she might be in mine. Yes, yes, that is likely. When you find her together you must find me."

"You?" Eric asked, trying to look at her as she shoved him along the dig site toward something she could see but he could not. "How old are you?" he asked, forgetting it's never polite to ask a lady her age.

"You must find me and give me this message _. 'The telepath must find the bomb before it goes off in Rhodes in 2005. When she presents herself to you at the trial, set her on the right path.'_ Say it back to me, now!" she commanded him as she continued to shove him toward something that only she could see.

 _"'_ _The telepath must find the bomb before it goes off in Rhodes in 2005. When she presents herself to you at the trial, set her on the right path.'"_

"Very good. Find me, human Northman. Give me this message. Worlds depend on it, on you and your love."

"Who are you?" he asked looking back her when they came to an abrupt stop.

"I am the Pythia, but in 1500 BC I was more widely known by another name, the Oracle of Delphi." She shoved him before he could react to that and he fell into something he couldn't see. He fell into time.

If time had a color it would be purple.

Neither blue nor red those are too pure. No time is some version of them swirling together, light and dark.

The purple was tearing him apart. So many voices filled the tunnel. All the people who were, are and will ever be speaking at once. He covered his ears but it wasn't his ears that could perceive the sounds.

There was no relief from the echoes of time.

 **"** **Are you trying to make me mad so I'll forget how scared I am?"** _Sookie?_ That was Sookie's voice that rose above the din. Before he could call out to her he heard himself answer.

 **"** **No, I'm just opportunistic."** Again, he heard himself and Sookie in some conversation they had never had.

 **"I'm hoping that the more you see me, the more I'll grow on you."**

 **"Like a fungus?"**

On the purple spun around him, he saw them in the shadows Sookie and himself, sometimes his hair long, sometimes short. In one he thought he caught a glimpse of fang and remembered Pythia's words. In her world he was vampire!

 **"** **I will protect us here in this strange world, Eric. You and our son, I swear it! No matter what it takes."**

 **"** **I know you will, my beautiful, Sookie. I believe you."** Her hair long, face tan and in this world she had the fangs! In some world Sookie was vampire, too!

Just when he thought his head would explode from the voices and the images that were rushing into him he was dumped unceremoniously out the other side of the purple. Landing on his knees head and stomach churning, her name on his lips he tried to stand, to move. He found only darkness rushing up to meet him.

 ** _Rhodes, 1500BC_**

Eric's eyes opened slowly. It was bright, he could feel the warmth on his face telling him the sun had risen. Sitting slowly he looked around and found himself on top of a grassy hill that reminded him of his first dream of Sookie.

If everything he had seen was right then he was in Rhodes. Standing slowly he started down the hill. He saw someone in the distance and stopped remembering he was still wearing his suit. His bag what still on his shoulder. Ducking behind a bush he quickly changed into the loose white toga and sandals that he had purchased at the costume shop when he arrived in Greece.

The clothing felt strange and freeing with the lack of undergarments. He almost put those back on but decided at the last minute if he was in this thing then he needed to be in it all the way. He would never find his sweet Sookie if he continued to hold back as he had his whole life.


	6. reunion

1\. Reunion

 ** _Six weeks later…._**

A very different Eric Northman moved down the crowded streets of Knossos. He had just arrived after spending weeks on board a fishing boat working his way from Rhodes to Knossos. His skin was golden brown, his muscles hard and tight from the work he had been doing to earn his way to where he believed Sookie to be. He moved with a confidence and grace that had always been in him but had been buried underneath Appius' hard tutelage and cruel ways.

Proving that he could not only learn, but grow and thrive in this strange land had opened up the heart of him. More than once on his long journey he had thought that if he should see his grandfather again the dynamic would definitely be different than it had ever been before. The thought excited him as did everything in this beautiful and savage world.

His captain and friend Sam moved beside him chatting constantly as he had done from the moment Eric had met him at the docks in Rhodes. In halting poorly pronounced Greek Eric had asked about passage to Knossos. Sam had looked him over from head to toe, his white skin glaring so brightly in the morning sun his friend had shielded his eyes. Eric would be forever grateful that despite his strange appearance and poor grasp of ancient Greek that Sam had taken him on anyway. Along the way they had become friends. The first friend that Eric had ever had outside of Sookie, and maybe Arlene, though he considered her more a business associate than friend. Until Sam he hadn't truly realized how lonely he was inside.

"She's a Bull Leaper, you wife?" Sam asked again as they worked their way through the crowd.

"Yes, I think so," Eric said, using his height over the crowd to his advantage. If she was here he would see her long before Sam who was nearly a foot shorter.

"It will be good to see her after all this time," Sam said a look in his eyes that told Eric he was as excited for their reunion as he was himself. He had spent many nights on the boat talking of her after their work was done for the day. The result was his improvement in speaking the native language as well Sam being his confidant for most of the things he wished he had said to Sookie over the years. Most but not all, some things were saved for her alone. They were too private and too personal to share with anyone else.

"Yes, it will be," Eric answered as he continued to scan for her blond head in the sea of people. The women were dressed traditionally for the time in long skirts with girdles cinched under the breasts placing them on display as he had seen Sookie in the dream the night before he had come through the purple to find her.

Sam's eyes were on every pair of rouged nipples that passed them but Eric had eyes only for Sookie. It wasn't that he didn't notice, he did, and his body noticed as well, but he would let nothing else delay him from her side. Even if it had been time well spent to learn his way around this world, it was too much time from her side.

Who knew what she had gotten into in the two and a half months since she had disappeared from Rhodes?

Suddenly the sound of horn split the air, bringing Eric and Sam to a halt. "The Leapers are coming!" someone cried out further down the street from where they were standing. He saw the crowd part, pressing back along the walls of the buildings that lined the street to make way. He heard the sound of music drawing closer, a flute and a drum by the sound of it, then he saw the first one.

He was male, short with blond hair and a hard body dressed only in a loincloth dancing and tumbling his way down the street. He looked happy as he did his acrobatics for the crowd that clapped loudly for every jump and turn he did. Soon another came into view, again male, this one with dark hair and the same well-muscled form that spoke to hours of training. There was a precision to their moves that called to mind the form of a bull being in their presence though none was there today.

"We made it in time for the spring planting festival!" Sam exclaimed next to him. "No wonder the city is so crowded. There is usually a huge banquet filled with willing women more than ready to celebrate the rights of the goddess!" Eric had to smile at his friend's excitement. He hoped that he would find a woman to fill his nights almost as much as he hoped to find THE woman to fill his. _Sookie_ , his soul called out to her and as if she had heard him she danced into sight up the street. Eric's heart stopped for a moment.

She was dressed in tight fitting loin cloth with her breasts bound tightly to her chest. Her long golden legs flashed in the sun as she danced and twirled for the crowd's delight and amusement. Her hair was braided and bound in golden cord that caught the light as she turned and her smile told him that in this moment at least she was truly happy.

The two male Leaper's stopped and crossed their arms, falling as one to their knees looking to Sookie. She bowed to them and then started running toward them as fast as she could. When she reached them she placed a foot on their crossed arms. They rose as one giving her the height and momentum to somersault through the air high above their heads. As she flew through the air Eric's heart stopped again the beauty of her taking his breath away.

All the moments of doubt that he had shoved down since this began in New York for him were dispersed like dust. She was here! When she landed nearly at his feet, her face flush with success and joy he shoved his way through the crowd and extended a hand to help her rise.

She looked up and her face froze just a moment in wonder before she ignored his hand and launched herself into his arms. She hit him as she had at eleven, with the full force of her now grown curvaceous body, pushing him back a step. Feeling her pressed against him now, so far from eight and eleven, so far from who they had been so long ago, made him struggle for air. He wanted to speak, he wanted to shout his joy. He never ever wanted to let her go.

She pulled her head back and looked at him like she had never seen him before and then as she had done in his office she placed her hand on the back of his neck and pulled him down to her lips. This time he knew there was nothing more perfect than this moment here with her. There was no second Eric that used Appius' voice to pull him away. There was only the Eric who had always loved her, would always love her. _My sweet Sookie_ , he thought as he dived into the kiss, his arms holding her tight to him. "I love you," he told her when she released his lips and looked into his eyes.

"'Bout time, Northman," she said before laying another kiss on him that left him seeing stars. Before he could say anything she wriggled from his arms and told him to wait there. Then she danced away to resume her show with the Leapers. More of them had appeared now and several of the other women were doing the same move she had just performed, vaulting so high into the air he wondered if they would ever come down again.

Sam leaned in as he watched her dance away. "You better hope your wife didn't see that," he said conspiratorially.

"That _was_ my wife," Eric said in a dazed tone. Sam laughed and clapped him on the back.

"Ha! I could tell from the way you looked at her! You were right, she is quite lovely."

"Yeah," Eric said again, still not taking his eyes off Sookie as she moved further away. He wanted to go after her, but she had told him to wait. As hard as it was to make himself stay still he did. He refused to let himself think for a second that he had come so far and found her only to lose her again!

After what seemed like hours he saw a glimpse of her blond head coming toward him and his heart began to beat normally for the first time since he had seen her come around the corner. When she was in his arms again, hugging him just as tightly as he was hugging her he let himself take a deep breath. "I dreamed of you," she said looking up at him, the light of love shining her eyes. "I knew you would find me." He held her tighter, trying to find a place to start with everything he had to say. The crowd was flowing around them on the street now, jostling against them every now and then. Sam stepped in and bowed to her.

"This is my friend Samuel Lambros," he said by way of introduction. "Sam, this is my wife, Sookie." She smiled at him again before bowing to Sam. "I came here on his fishing vessel Lagos." Sookie stepped back.

"Come with me. I have a small house not too far away. We will refresh ourselves and you can tell me of your journeys." She held his hand as she led them through the crowd.

Several hours and much wine later, Sam said his farewells, headed out to find a companion for the evening. Sookie had made fast friends with him and hugged him tightly before he left. "Thank you for bringing me my Eric," she told him. Sam had returned her embrace with genuine affection before moving to embrace Eric as well.

"I will see you soon, my friend," he told Eric before stepping out into the night. The revelry could still be heard from the street outside. There was no doubt that he would soon find what he was looking for in the happy crowd. She closed the door behind him, resting against as she looked at Eric in the lamp light of her house.

"I can't believe you're here."

"Me either."

"How did you find me?"

"I just believed I would. I couldn't let myself believe anything else."

"Me either. I called out to you every day and every night believing you would come. I…I don't know why. You had never given me anything to believe in before." She looked down at the floor when she spoke those words, her pain evident. Eric felt it, too. He opened his arms to her, calling her to where he sat on a cushion next to her small table. She moved toward him instantly, her hope overriding her pain. She sighed when she sat in his lap, her back pressed to his chest.

His arms came around her, crossing her waist to hold her closer, his head coming down to rest on her shoulder. He was flush from the wine they had shared with Sam. Her skin had a light sheen of sweat from the warm spring evening and the wine, too probably. He wanted to taste her, his tongue came out unbidden to caress her shoulder, ending a soft kiss filled with all the love he felt for the woman in his arms. She moaned softly and pressed her body tighter to his.

"I have always been with you, every step you took, no matter where you were, I was with you, Sookie." He felt her tremble. "I have loved you with everything I am since I was eleven years old. I didn't know how to show you something so big I couldn't see the end of it." She laced her fingers with his and let her head fall back to rest on his shoulder.

"I didn't know about your letters when you came to my office that terrible day. Appius had hidden them from me. I have read them now and I know that in truth if I had read them before I would have probably treated them as I did your telegrams. I am most ashamed of my silence, my sweet Sookie. You were right and you were wrong. It was shyness that held me bound in silence no matter how free you were with your love of me. It was never a lack of interest, it was the opposite in fact. I am so very sorry that I hurt you, Sookie. I understand if you can never forgive my silence all these years. I can't change what has happened, but I can promise you that if you will truly be mine I will never ever be silent to you again." She rolled her head on his shoulder toward his face.

"What changed?" she asked him quietly, her voice cracking.

"I lost you."

"Never," she told him, her arm coming up behind his head, her fingers running through his hair, longer than it had ever been.

"I thought I had."

"That's what you get for thinking, Northman." He chuckled.

"When I read your letters and realized fully what a terrible mistake I had made I nearly lost my mind. Then just as I was about to leave for Rhodes I got a telegram telling me that you were missing and presumed dead. I thought…I never wanted to face another day without you, Sookie Stackhouse. There had been too many of them already."

"So you jumped on a ship and came to Greece?"

"After I robbed the New York City library, yes."

"Robbed?"

"History books about Greece. You told me in a dream to get them, to learn, to come for you." She gasped, sitting up a little, turning to face him.

"We were having a picnic!" He nodded. She was silent, her eyes wide in shock. "How? How is that even possible, Eric?" He rolled his eyes.

"Asks the archaeologist who traveled 3500 years into the past to become a Bull Leaper of Knossos. Really?" His hand came up to her face, touching her to reassure himself that this was real. "I don't know how any of this possible. I just know that I would accept no other outcome. I was going to find you no matter what it took!"

"And…you want a life with me, Eric?"

"There is no life for me without you." The truth of his words rang between them in the tiny house. Her eyes drifted shut a moment and he saw the tear slide down her cheek silently. When she opened her eyes she looked at him with a passion that left him weak in his knees.

"And there is no life for me without you either, Eric Northman." She kissed him then, softly. The kiss that promised nights filled with thousands of kisses and days filled with her hand in his. He was alive for the first time in twenty-seven years, she had breathed it into him one small breath at a time.

"Can you tell me how you came to be here," he asked her after he had kissed and held her for a while. She was settled comfortably against him, both of them still sitting on the floor.

"All I remember was being at the dig site and then waking up in past. I think," she stopped her, trying hard to remember. "There was an explosion of some kind. I remember a loud roaring sound and then something pushed me, or pulled me and then I was here." He kissed her head.

"You said in the dream that you were taken from Rhodes and they planned to sell you to a brothel?" She shuddered against him. "Did they hurt you, Sookie?" He was scared of her answer. What if they had defiled her in some way on her journey here before she secured a position as a Leaper?

"No, they didn't touch me, not in that way, Eric. They wanted me to be a virgin because I would bring them more money that way." His body tensed with rage. "They said that if I bled that I would bring a higher price." He could feel her blush in the darkened room, but he didn't understand her words.

"What do you mean 'if you bled'?" She squeezed his hand tighter, pressing closer and turning her face into his chest a little.

"Women the first time they… with a man, if they are virgins sometimes they bleed afterward." Eric felt his own cheeks flame up.

"Oh." She squirmed again.

"But, I wouldn't have." He froze. Did that mean that she had… with a man before? He was frozen, mortified, first at the topic, then that he knew so little about how things were with men and women and lastly, the idea that she had not waited for him as he had for her. Had there been someone else before she knew that she wanted him?

Feeling the tension in him she rushed to reassure him. "No, no, Eric. I haven't…done that before. Sometimes with girls if they are riding horses it can…well" she stopped taking a deep breath before plunging on. "I was riding a horse when I was twelve. The horse jumped a fence and I came down hard in the saddle. There was a brief period of intense pain and then after there was blood in my undergarments. I worked up the courage to ask Grandfather. I was scared that something was wrong. He explained it all very gently to me and then he said something that I will never forget."

"What's that?" he whispered to her.

"That you would understand." He let out a breath.

"So, Earl Stackhouse knew that"-

"I loved you," she finished. "He didn't make a fuss or speak of it ever again, but he was right. When he told me what it meant, that it could be seen as I was no longer a lady, I worried immediately that you would think…" she stopped then, unable to go on. Eric was quiet as he thought over these revelations.

Earl Stackhouse knew that he loved Sookie. That was what he had been about to say when she cut him off. Earl knew, and he approved. He believed that his love for Sookie would make such a thing unimportant. He was right, too, but what meant more to Eric than anything else was that he had Earl's approval to be with Sookie. He smiled and hugged her again.

"What?" she asked him, rubbing his hand. "I can feel how happy you are. What is it, baby?"

"It just means a lot that Earl thought it was a good thing for me to love you. That he accepted me and us."

"Of course he did. You were the reason he stayed with Appius. He knew what seeing you meant to me, to us. He was not a fan of Appius." Eric grunted his response, and felt his affection for Earl Stackhouse grow deeper.

"Sookie, I saw you tell King Minos that I was your husband." Now she tensed in his arms, as if waiting for a blow. "Would you be my wife, really be my wife, I mean?"

"You told Sam I already was."

"It was simpler than trying to explain the truth."

"And what is the truth?"

"That you would be my wife if I done things I should have with you." She turned then to face him fully, he gasped when she straddled his lap, placing her body on his in such an intimate way that he felt himself harden fully immediately. Instead of pulling away though she pressed closer, pulling a groan from his chest. She kissed him softly on the lips, her hands resting on his face.

"I told Minos that you were my husband because in my heart you already are." She rocked in his lap, a purely instinctive response to his body being next to hers clearly wanting hers as much as she wanted him.

"Sookie, I've never"-

"Shh, me either, baby." She kissed him again then.

"I love it when you call me 'baby'," he said against her lips, letting go of his fear with her. He trusted her and what was between them enough to travel through time for her. There was no way he would pull back from her now.

"I read your letter from so long ago, about the couple you saw on the way back from the river," he said quietly as he kissed along her neck. "I loved that letter! It made me…want you so much, Sookie. The things you said you saw, the things you felt. I felt them all with you when I read your words." She moaned as he found a spot on her neck that made her shiver in his arms.

Her response made him feel powerful and manly in a way that nothing else ever had. This woman made him feel like the man he had always wanted to be. He shivered then, overcome with his desire to touch her. "I want…" he swallowed struggling for the words that would tell her what he was feeling. "I want to be with you, the way you described in your letter. I want to be with you, Sookie, like a husband is with his wife."

"I want that, too, so much, baby," she purred as his large hands roamed her body wanting to touch her everywhere all at once. "I want you, too, Eric." He was lost to her in that moment. "Lie back," she said to him, moving off his lap.

Slowly she reached up and grasped the binding that held her breasts to her chest. She was still wearing what she had on when he first saw her. He fell back, resting on his elbows, his long body laid out before her, the evidence of his desire very obvious under his short tunic. Her eyes ran the length of his body. She swallowed when her gaze fell to his arousal, her hands fumbling a little as she lost her concentration on removing her breast bindings. Taking a deep breath she resumed her efforts.

A moment later the binding fell to the floor beside her. He looked at her beautiful breasts, her hard nipples and without thinking leaned in to touch her, letting them rest in the palms of his hands while his thumbs came up to rub across her taut nipples. When her eyes went shut and a soft moan of pleasure came up from her slightly opened mouth Eric felt his shaft jerk in response. He had never been this hard before in his life.

She slowly removed the rest of her clothing, her tanned skin catching the dim light, glowing it seemed to his eyes. Then she started removing his clothing. He raised up to help her. When he was naked she looked at his arousal, her hand rising to wrap around his long thick shaft. He wrapped his hand around hers gently and pumped them together a few times.

His eyes shut as the pleasure of her touch washed through him and he felt moisture pool at his tip his need for her was so powerful. She ran her thumb over the head of his shaft as he had done with her nipples making his body thrust into her hand seeking to extend the contact between his flesh and hers. They moaned together as his body responded.

Following his guidance she grasped him tightly, her small hand barely meeting around the base of his large arousal, moving up and down as he had shown her. In a few strokes of her soft warm hand he exploded, hard jets of his release forced from his body, landing on her hand, belly and thighs. "Sookie!" he called her name as his powerful release made him fall back onto his elbows again.

When he caught his breath and looked up she was still there, now covered in the evidence of his desire. He looked into her eyes, unsure what to feel. His first thought was shame. Shame that he had come so quickly, shame that she was now a mess because of him, but something in her eyes killed that before it came to fruition.

Something in her eyes told him that now, now more than any words or paper could convey, now she was his. His reaction to her touch had pleased her more than stumbling words or promises ever could have. She was his and that he had trusted her with something so personal and so intimate that brought him such obvious pleasure had in turn moved her immeasurably as well.

She moved closer to him, straddling his legs again, opening her legs over his body. Looking deep into his eyes she took his hand and moved it between her thighs to the secret heart of her. He gasped when he felt her slick folds open for his fingers. She showed him just where and how to touch her, and then left his hand there to continue its movements between her thighs as he had done with her hand on his shaft.

He experimented with pressure and speed and soon had her gasping, rocking on his hand as she grasped his shoulders tightly. "Eric," she called out between pants as she rocked faster. He responded with increased pressure and speed. She paused a moment to adjust his hand, sliding one of his long fingers into her tight hot channel while leaving his thumb where it been before. As soon as his finger entered her she called his name again in a strangled cry that made his shaft rise again beneath her as full, hard and aching as it had been before his release.

She rode his finger, bouncing her hips as his thumb caressed her pleasure center. He watched her, his seed shining against her skin, the wet heat between her thighs sliding down his palm as he pressed harder and deeper into her. His finger inside her touched something special, a raised spot that his sensitive touch registered. She jerked, her head flying back, her moans increasing. He touched it again, and again watching in awe as she found her first release with him. He felt his hand grow wetter between her thighs. Acting on pure desire he continued to touch her, rub her slick folds inside and out while his other hand came up pulling her lips to his so he could drink her pleasure into himself.

When she went limp in his arms he pulled her to his chest and kissed her along the edge of her hair whispering words of love to her that he had never dared speak aloud before. When she moved back he nearly protested needing to keep her close to him. When he realized what she was doing he fell silent, his stomach muscles knotting in anticipation of feeling her tight wet heat around his throbbing shaft.

He wanted to make it last longer this time. He wanted to give her pleasure again as he just had with his hand so that he could see her as she had been in that moment again. When he felt the tip of him at her hot entrance he fell back, fighting not to explode right then. He wanted to be deep inside her listening to her chant his name when he spilled his seed this time. This time he wanted to come inside his wife, his sweet Sookie.

While she worked him into her he clenched his fists at his side and moaned. Her little sounds of pleasure pain as his flesh stretched her open for him made it almost impossible for him not come. She was so focused on her task, on the sensations sweeping through her that when she was fully seated on him with him buried inside her she let her head fall back, focused on the feeling of being spread open for him as she had never been before. There was no true pain, just pleasure so sharp and exquisite that her heart fluttered as she sat there, breathing, feeling him inside her. It was in this silence that his moans pierced her haze.

"Eric," she said softly, he moaned again, the vibration of his name passing through her flesh and into his. He locked his jaw and clenched his fists tighter to hold on. She lay her body down on his, the change in angle bending him with her while dislodging the thick base of him from her wet heat. Wanting that back he caught her and rose to sit, clasping her to his chest as he buried his face in her neck still fighting for control. When the wet heat pulled at the bottom of his shaft again he shook violently in her arms. "What's wrong, baby?" she asked breathless still. "Am I hurting you?"

"God, no, Sookie! So good! I can't! Oh!" She wrapped her arms around him then, running a hand through his hair softly to calm him. Careful not to move her body or to lose him from deep inside her she just rubbed his hair and held him, taking deep calming breaths herself. Her body was telling her to move as she had on his hand a few moments before but he wasn't ready. His pleasure was as important to her as her own. She would wait forever for him if she had to.

A few moments later he began to take deep breaths, too, allowing both of them to calm down while still adjusting to this new connection between them. When he stopped shaking she pulled back to look at him, moving as little as possible. "Ok, now?" she asked him. He saw her eyes filled with love and concern and his passion for her came back, but this time it was more than his body's need for release. This time it was also his hearts need for connection.

"Love you," he said before crushing his lips to hers, his tongue sliding into her mouth, moving as the rest of him wanted to move inside her. "So good inside you," he ground out as he moved to kiss her neck. She cried out as his hips thrust up gently pressing him deeper inside.

"Always loved you, baby," she said breathy in his ear as she started to move on him, rising up and down with her hips. His eyes tried to cross from the pleasure he felt when she rose up her internal muscles milking him toward another hard release with each passing second. His hand slid down between them finding the spot she had shown him before. Her back arched when he found it, her hips grinding down hard on him, as she thrust her breasts in his face.

Wanting her to feel everything he was feeling he took one of her nipples in his mouth, sucking long and hard. The combination of him thrusting inside her, his hand on her nub working in tight hard circles and his hot mouth sucking her nipple sent Sookie over the edge and she came apart for him right there just as he had needed her to do. Again, he felt his masculine side purr in satisfaction as his thighs grew wet with her release in his arms. The tight pulsations on his shaft inside her making his field of vision narrow the pleasure was so intense.

Rolling them over so that she was beneath him he thrust into her quivering body, pounding her hard in five quick thrusts he came inside her over and over screaming her name as he fell on top of her unable to move as the indescribable pleasures washed through him in waves. It was everything he had imagined it would be and more to love his sweet Sookie. His last thought was that to have this forever would never be enough.


	7. Morning Light

1\. Morning Light

Later, wrapped around her soft sated body, his legs entangled with hers he told her how the Pythia had sent him back and what she had told him to tell her once he found her. "I suppose we will have to travel to Mount Parnassus where the temple of Apollo is to find her."

"She is coming here for the festival. She may be here already. She is the guest of honor for the great banquet on the third and final evening of the festival."

"That is some coincidence," he whispered into her hair. "First I find you almost the moment I land in Knossos and now she is here, too."

"Balance wants to be restored," she said turning to kiss his shoulder where she had been resting. He made a non-committal sound in response and asked her to tell him what the festival entailed.

"Tomorrow there will be vendors setting in the square to sell their goods and foods to the crowd. It is a day of relaxation where no one works and everyone is free to do as they please as long as they harm no other."

"Sounds wonderful," he said snuggling her closer. "Can we spend it here, like this?" She chuckled.

"I think we can work something out, but there are some things that I would like to show you."

"Good. What about the second day?"

"The second day is filled with athletic events. First wrestling, then a foot race around the city and last the Leapers will take the arena and perform their sacred dance honoring the bull and the snake.

"I read about them, the bull has no name that I could find. The goddess is called As-sa-sa-ra."

"The Bull has no name, he is the infinite strength that holds the world on his horns. The goddess represents fertility and is depicted holding a snake in each hand, symbolizing the female influence on the male gender." He thought for a moment about how Sookie had definitely seemed like an all-powerful goddess to him when she held his snake in her hand. Then another darker thought pushed that back.

"Is it dangerous, this sacred dance?"

"Asks the man who traveled through time to be here." She shrugged. "Most things worth doing are."

"But you don't have do it anymore. I am here now." She turned to face him.

"And I am glad, but I must do this. They took me in when I was bound for servitude in a brothel! My brothers and sisters kept me safe from even the King, Eric. I can't desert them now that the moment they have practiced for has arrived. Some of them have waited their whole lives to perform tomorrow. I can't let them down. I won't!"

This was her, the Sookie that she told him about but that he had never met before. Her existence was mythic to him, something that she told stories about in the past tense. Telling him what she was going to do, what he was going to have to watch her do was entirely different. The hard truth was that Sookie could die tomorrow, harpooned on a bull horn, her precious lifeblood mixing with dirt as her life drained away. Deep emotions rolled over inside him, pulling and tugging at places he had never felt moved of touched before.

As her husband it was his job to protect her, care for her. Letting her do this flew in the face of all those duties. To deny her this choice and many more like it that he saw lining up inevitably in his future would forever change his Sookie into someone else. For just a moment he let himself wonder if he would have found her so irresistible if she had first come to his grandfather's office without her fabulous tales of adventure. Is that part of what he needed from her as much as he now needed her body pressed to his?

Having known the pleasures if their joining he would never be able to deny himself her touch again. Her actions no matter how risky were an intrinsic part of the mystery that was Sookie Stackhouse. He could settle for no less than everything.

"Promise me you will be careful?"

"I don't have to be careful. I just have to be good."

"Are you good, Sookie?"

"Pretty damned good."

"You better be."

Lulled by the sound of her steady sleeping breath Eric felt himself relax completely for the first time in his life. There was nowhere else he wanted to be and nothing else he wanted to be doing. He was smiling when he drifted off and slept a dreamless sleep.

She woke him with the sunrise, wriggling from his long arms to relieve herself the small room at the corner of her little house that he had seen the night before. He had been surprised to see that Knossos had a sewer system beneath it. They had redirected part of the nearby river to run under city. It was superior in some ways to the systems they had back home. When he had commented she had spent an hour praising Greek architecture and the way they designed their temple and buildings to catch the light at different parts of the day.

"They figured out how to light each room with the sun, depending on the time of day. They use the chambers in accordance with the time of the meeting so that it is always bright and serviceable." He had thought that over as she went on.

He had come here with preconceived notions of what the time and place would be like. He had though it would be less than the life they had in 1932, inferior in technology and that the people would be less as well, savage and frightening. In his time here had learned the opposite to be true. They weren't less, they were just different. In some ways they were superior.

They used the land as part of their structures, not changing the land to suit them, rather changing themselves to incorporate the natural landscape around them. It was a harmonious existence that was very attractive when taken as a whole. Then Sookie said something that took him out of his thoughts and back into the conversation.

"This city was designed by Daedalus himself, as was the Labyrinth that is beneath it."

"There is so much in that sentence that I don't even know where to start!" Her eyes alight she and turned to him.

"I know right? THE Daedalus, here, now. THE Labyrinth, here, now. It's…amazing!" She went on after a moment. "I met him once, at the palace. He was there to consult with Minos and the Leapers had been summoned to attend the function as well. I learned that day about the architectural intents in design and how everything the he builds is set to compliment the land it rests on. The city and the Labyrinth run downhill, its entrances at the bottom of the hill that Knossos sits atop." Eric's head was spinning.

"Is Icarus still alive?"

"Yes, I met him as well. His father's son to be sure. He is curious about everything around him."

"As I recall that doesn't end well for him." She frowned then.

"No, it doesn't, but I decided that to try and change that would be…well…there is no way to tell what else would change if we changed his fate."

"Shouldn't we try though? I mean if Daedalus invents his wings and the boy flies too close to the sun he will die. If we can save him, shouldn't we?" She shook her head.

"I think that we are too small to know the wide rippling effects of saving his life."

She returned to him on the bed of blankets they had shared the previous night with a bowl of water and cloth in her hands. He was distracted from his philosophical wonderings by the way the early morning light kissed her skin as she moved through the room. She was so beautiful that it took his breath away and made him want her again. Throwing back the blanket to let her see the affect she had on him, he watched she set the bowl down and lay down beside him

"Good morning," she said softly, kissing him, fanning the flames of desire in him even higher when he felt her soft breasts press against his chest. "You look so good here in the morning light," she whispered in his ear as she kissed his neck and tried to get even closer. His arms came around her, but she pulled back.

"Sit in the chair," she said, rising to her knees and reaching for the bowl of water and cloth. He rose, curious to see what she had in mind. Once he was seated she wet the rag and stood to wash his face gently. He closed his eyes and let himself enjoy her touch. Down his body she moved, washing his back and chest, his stomach and his legs.

He moaned and reached for her when she washed between his legs, unintentionally arousing him even further until he was hard and throbbing. Provoked by the sounds coming from him, she leaned in and kissed him again. "You take my breath away with your magnificence," she said softly, looking him the eye so that he could see the truth of words.

She kneeled then and washed his feet. Slowly, getting all the dust off him from his travels with such care and tenderness that he was nearly undone right there. When she was done she set the bowl aside and walked on her knees toward him, coming up between his legs and placing a trail of soft kisses on his belly. Her eyes looked up as her mouth came down on his hard shaft, the feeling of her tongue teasing the tip of him made him come twitch in her hand and mouth, his head falling back in purest pleasure, unable to keep his eyes open. She released him long enough to speak and take the rest of his mind from him. "I wanted to taste you last night. To love you in this way." His hands came up to tangle in her hair as she took him in her mouth again.

The sensation was so new, her hot mouth so different than her hand or her body as he had taken her the night before. She swallowed him, using her hand to pump him as he had shown her the night before and in moments he was exploding inside her mouth. Startled, she pulled back suddenly. Some of his seed running from between her lips as she realized what had happened. The sight of her like that affected him just as it had the night before when he had spilled across her body.

This time he slid from the chair, pulling her to him. Her kiss tasted different, but not unpleasant. His elation at her desire to take him into her in this way excited him even more. He expressed that feeling in his kiss and within moments she was writhing against him, aroused by their passion ready to join again as they had before. He pulled back, kissing her lips softly one last time and then taking the bowl rose to get fresh water. "Sit in the chair, please."

Slowly he squeezed the water from the rag and bathed her as she had done with him starting with her face. She bent to his touch, moaning her pleasure are he cared for her. When he came to her breasts he squeezed the rag again, letting the water run down before wiping her clean. The cool water and his attentions had made her nipples stand up and he couldn't resist kissing them and taking a gentle suck of each one as he moved the rag down her legs. She opened for him, letting him wash her as she had him.

He let his fingers replace the rag and touch her for a moment as she had shown him to the night before. She pressed down on his hand wanting more. Her hands came up to his shoulders as he touched her. After a moment he pulled away gently to wash her feet as she had his. Her eyes never left him the look on her face was almost that of a woman in a trance as he finished and set the bowl aside. Then he walked toward her on his knees as she had done for him and kissed his way along her leg until his face was between her legs.

Using his fingers he sought out the place his fingers had memorized, following them with his tongue. When he first touched her nub with his tongue she moaned and thrust her hips at him opening her legs wider to give him more access. He placed her legs on his broad shoulders and went back to licking her, moving in circles around her nub and then across it. Thinking of how good it felt when she had sucked him he puckered his lips and did the same to her. She moaned his name and let her head fall back. Pleased with her response to his efforts he did it again until her whole body seized, her feet arching against is back as she found her release.

As he had found with his taste in her mouth, her body tasted different and good in a way he had not expected. He felt himself respond, the aching need to be one with her again increasing to the point he could not stand it any longer. Pulling her down to him he kissed her, his face wet with her juices. Again, she responded to him and the taste in way that made him feel so much pleasure he could barely stand it. To be with her, his sweet Sookie like this, so free and fearless was unimaginably good.

Lost in need and instinct he pulled her back to his chest and raised her small form, lining his erect flesh up with her entrance. As soon as he found it he felt her wetness start to coat him. Gently he eased her down, opening her legs over his further so that he could reach her nub with his long fingers. When he started moving in tight circles with his fingers while rocking up into her as deep as he could get, she moved his other hand to her breast. "I love you," she said, turning to kiss him again her tongue dancing with his.

They rocked together slowly until between his fingers and his hard length she peaked again in his arms, tossing her head back and forth in his shoulder as she came. He was enraptured with her every move and word as they experienced this new love in the light of day. Seeing her made him need to move harder. Raising her gently he guided her onto her hands and knees before he pressed up behind her, finding his place inside her again.

Taking her hips in his hands he held her there while he let his hips move into and out again, growing in speed intensity until he felt the pressure build inside him. Knowing he could wait no longer he came down over her, catching his weight on his hands, but touching his front to her back, needing to feel as much of her as possible. He kissed her back and her neck. "Love you, Sookie, so much!" he managed to get out as he came deep inside her so hard that he nearly blacked out. He caught himself in time to fall to the side of her body and felt her curl up next to him before he could no longer keep himself awake.

This is heaven, his last thought before sleep took him again.


	8. Leaping

1\. Leaping

"You have to try this!" she said pulling him through the crowd toward another vendor selling food of some kind. They had already eaten their way through Knossos twice. This one was selling some kind of meat pies with cups of wine. She was already halfway through her pie when he asked her what it was.

"Lamb with berry sauce," she got out as she shoved in another large bite. Following her lead he took a bite and a moment later was shoving it in just as fast as she was. He was still eating when she dragged him off to see the next thing. She had been like a little girl all day, showing him the delights of the city one after another. It was all a blur to him, his only real memories of her in the light as it changed around them telling the passage of time. He could look at her forever and never see everything there was to see.

"Eric!" recognizing Sam's voice he turned to greet his friend. They hugged and Sam introduced him companion Lela Dimitrios and her daughter Calisto. She was a small thing with dark hair. She seemed every bit at delighted as Sookie was with the festival and its offerings.

"Bacchus would be so pleased with the festival!" Calisto exclaimed clapping her hands. "Can we go make an offering to him, please?" Sam smiled at her.

"Of course little Calisto." Turning to Eric and Sookie he explained that Calisto was destined for the temple of Bacchus when she became of age. When she entered the temple would become a wife to the god.

"Lo Lo Bromios, Lo Lo Dendrites, Eleutherios, Enorches, Bacchus," the little girl chanted as she moved through the crowd around them dancing.

"It is a great honor for my daughter to be chosen," Lela added watching her Calisto with pride. Eric felt a chill pass through him as he watched her. The old expression that someone had just walked over his grave came to mind. He felt Sookie's hand tighten on his and saw the same look on her face. It passed as quickly as it came. Sam waved farewell and headed with his ladies to the temple of Bacchus.

Looking around Eric spied something he wanted to check out so for a change he dragged her with him yelling, "You've to see this!" She was still laughing when then got to the booth. Sam had paid him for his work on the voyage to Knossos and he wanted to buy a gift for his wife.

The vendor was selling dresses like the one he had seen her wearing when she was Minos in the dream. He looked through the wares until he found just the thing. It was a dress of cranberry red that had a bodice of golden threads that would frame and display her breasts in the fashion of the time.

Imagining her in it he felt his mouth go dry and his body respond. "Yes, this is the one I want," he told the vendor, haggling on the price as Sam had taught him to do. When they finally agreed he triumphantly took his prize and turned to offer it to her. She had tears running down her cheeks. His heart crashed.

"Do you not like it?" he asked ready to return it if she hated it that much.

"I love it," she said reaching out to touch it. "It's just what I would have picked for myself, only better because you picked it for me." He kissed her forehead.

"I will never understand you, Sookie Stackhouse Northman." She sniffled, a smile bursting through.

"That's ok, as long as you don't stop trying."

"Never. Now let's go home and try this on?" They walked home hand in hand, picking up a jug of wine and bread for later. They did not plan to come back out that evening.

"Iolas is favored to win the wrestling matches today," she said as they looked for a seat in the arena the next day. "That's him there," she pointed to a dark haired well-muscled man who appeared to be around Eric's age. He was dressed only in a white loin cloth, his dark skin shiny with oil that would make it easier for him to avoid the holds of his opponents. The matches started as soon as they found a seat. Sookie talked him through the events and he tried to pay attention but his mind kept wandering.

She had told him that she would leave him as soon as the footrace stared to go and prepare for the dance that would start when the race ended. He was trying to prepare himself for seeing her harm's way with a very large very angry bull that she would be leaping around and on as part of the ritual. As time passed he grew more and more anxious.

"I know you are worried, Eric." Her words pulled him back to focus on her.

"What do you mean?"

"You're squeezing my hand nearly in two." Immediately he eased up, but did not let her go.

"Sorry." He made himself stop there. To say more would only serve to distract her, perhaps at a crucial moment that could cost her very life. Taking a deep breath he decided to go a different way. She needed him to be there for her. He had made a poor showing of that so far in their lives together. He would not let her down again. Taking a deep breath he turned to face her.

"I am excited for you, Sookie. I know how much this means to you. I know what the other Leapers mean to you and I know that you are going to be great today!" She smiled faintly and he was pretty sure that she saw right through him, but then he found the core of the truth that he was trying to convey and his words became more confident.

"When I read your letters of the things you had seen and done I knew that in some way you had prepared for this your whole life. You were able to practice bull leaping in that village where you better than the strongest boy there! You spent your life studying ancient cultures and found yourself where you could best put that use. You are the most beautiful amazing woman in any world, Sookie. I believe in you even when I can't believe in myself."

Her jaw had dropped slightly as he talked. "What happened to my sweet shy Eric?" she asked.

"He realized if he didn't learn to speak up that he would lose the most important thing in his entire life."

"No danger of that happening now."

"Good."

"I love you, you crazy man."

"That's the best part."

"What?"

"That you love me."

"Since the first day I saw you."

"Me, too, and every day since."

"Me, too."

He held her hand until the matches were over. She kissed him softly before she left to go prepare. He smiled at her focused on being supportive and strong until she passed out of his sight. Then he let himself fall apart, all his worst fears rushing in.

Not knowing what to do with himself he went to find a drink. He wound up having several, and completely ignoring the footrace before returning to his seat to wait for the bull leaping to begin. He was glad that she could not see how scared he was for her and for himself. If something happened to her today he would not survive it. He knew that as sure as he knew this was something she had to do.

On his journey there he had read everything he could find about bull leaping. There hadn't been nearly enough to put him at ease. His wine addled mind kept thinking of the fresco. What if it had _been a memorial to his wife?_

 _You've got to get a grip!_

 _Right, get a grip. She's traveled the world and done many things like this, will do many more like this. You can't let this get to you. This is what it is to love her. This feeling of always being not able to help while she runs off and does something dangerous. If you can't take the heat, too bad! You are already in the kitchen, Northman._

 _Would you give it up even if you could? Would you give her up now?_

 _NO!_

 _Then get it together man!_

He was still arguing with himself when Sam, Lela and Calisto joined him. "Are you excited for the show, Eric?"

"Thrilled," Eric deadpanned. Sam clapped him on the back smiling.

"She'll be fine. She trained for this and I saw her when we arrived in the streets. She's really good at this." That made the knots in his middle ease up a little.

"Thanks, Sam. I appreciate that." Sam smiled and sat back ready to watch. Eric took some deep breaths and was just starting to calm down a little when Calisto came up to him and placed her hand on his arm.

"Bacchus gave me a message for you." She pressed a small round stone into his hand and folded his fingers over it. "He said you would need this soon. There will be just enough light to see where it rolls, and for you to remember that stones roll downhill."

"What?" Eric asked, confused. She walked away taking her seat just as the horns blew and the bull was released to the arena.

You don't see a lot of livestock in New York City. He had seen some since he had been in Greece they had been sedate farming animals for the most part. This bull looked like it had been bred in Hell and fed lightning bolts every day since. Standing with its shoulders at six foot, it was taller than Eric and three times as broad. The horns were at least three feet long and razor sharp. When it was released to run out into the arena it charged out at a full gallop head down, looking for a target.

Eric's heart seized up in his chest. He started to rise but Sam caught his arm and pulled him back down. "Trust her, Eric. You came all the way from Rhodes believing in her. Believe in her now." _I came a lot further than Rhodes_ , he thought letting Sam pull him down. "Here they come," Sam said when the horn blew again.

One by one they filed out. There were thirteen in total, seven men and six women. The came out running around the edge of the arena alternating turning right or left as they came out. They ran until they were evenly spaced around the edges of the arena then they turned and faced the crowd bowing and waving as though four hundred pounds of murder wasn't in the ring with them. Eric's eyes flipped back and forth from Sookie to the bull.

As one the Leapers clapped and started back flipping to the center of the arena. They were two flips in when they stopped and broke into teams as they had in the street yesterday. Sookie ran back and then toward her two kneeling partners. Before he could take a breath she was in the air flipping. She landed on the bulls back with her hands for just a second and then pushed off and up continuing to flip to the other side where she tucked and rolled coming to her feet then running toward the edge.

Her touch had set the bull in motion. Another Leaper came in head on somersaulting toward the bull. He flipped around catching the horns and using them to push up and over the charging form landing safely behind him as he ran by. One by one the Leapers took turns jumping over, around and on the bull when he came near. Sometimes they worked together, sometimes alone but always in practiced and graceful moves that kept the audience on the edge of its seat. They made it look easy. They made it look like the bull had practiced and trained with them, which was Eric supposed what made their actions special.

Though he never relaxed he came soon to see the dance for what it was, a celebration of life. Their moves said no matter how well you planned there was always the unknown, the charging bull that could make it all obsolete in a moment. Their dance spoke of how control was only an illusion no matter how they all clung to it every day.

If he hadn't already been madly in love with her he would have fallen when she took the bull by the horns one last time flipping up onto his back as her two partners each took a horn pushing up with their lithe muscular bodies. It was not a pose they could have held for more than a second, but a second was all she needed to slide the knife into the bull's neck severing an artery, completing the sacrifice of the magnificent animal that was the culmination of the ritual.

Leaping off they continued to dance around him as he bled out on the ground, finally collapsing in a great heap. Then one by one the Leapers came forth and used the blood to mark their faces. The crowd was on its feet screaming, clapping and cheering. Eric was on his feet, too but only so that he never lost sight of his wife.

Now that it was over he felt such a strange mix of emotions churning through him. Love, always love, admiration, and anger at her for putting him through so much. He knew it wasn't rational, but he couldn't change how he felt. He wasn't even sure it was anger because it was mixed with desire and a need to touch her that could no longer be denied. It was as if he had to make sure for himself that she was truly all right.

When the Leapers left the stadium through the same door they had entered by he said his farewells to Sam and his women moving quickly through the crowd. Gracefully he vaulted the wall landing in the sandy arena jogging toward the door he had seen her enter a few minutes before. He pushed through and found himself in a long dimly lit corridor. The corridor twisted and turned causing him to get lost several times. The longer it took for him to find her the more he lost emotional control of himself.

After what seemed forever he stumbled into an open room where again the river had been directed through troughs of clay to create a waterfall shower. That was a luxury he didn't even have at home. For some reason this unhinged him further. The others were finishing when he came in. Like everyone else in this time their nudity was taken as a matter of daily occurrence. He had grown used to that now, the scant loincloths the willingness to lose them at a moment's notice.

He stood in the doorway and watched her turn under the water, wetting her hair and washing the blood from her face. Her eyes were closed as she enjoyed the sensation of the cool water running down her body. He did not speak, nor did the other Leapers as they gathered their clothing and slipped away leaving him there with her. They could have stayed it wouldn't have changed what he intended to do. A part of him almost wished they had. They would have left here knowing what he was only beginning to understand himself.

This woman had tied him in knots all day. She had held him in her hand, and she had kept him safe, but that wasn't enough. The emotional exposure he felt, the vulnerability was unbearable unless he know that he was not alone in it. He had to know that she was just as exposed, just as vulnerable to him.

He had to know if he meant as much to her as she did to him. That if he lost himself to this feeling of helplessness and mindless need he would turn and find her at his side.

He walked in shower so focused on her that he didn't even bother to remove his clothes. He was already shirtless, but the white toga he wore around his hips was soaked as soon as he pressed his large frame next to hers under the stream. She jumped, jerking her eyes open hands clenched and ready to strike. They relaxed immediately when she saw that it was him.

"Eric? What is it? What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he said, his voice deep. "Everything," he added a moment later his hands roaming her body looking for damage from her bull dance, but she was as perfect now as she had been last night and this morning. This pleased and frustrated him in equal measure. For all the torment he had been subjected to shouldn't there be some visible evidence for its justification?

His hand moved between her legs touching her in the way that took her breath away. He continued for several moments, watching her desire build as her hands clutched his shoulders. "That feeling you have now, that need for more, the heaviness in your breasts that make your nipples hard, the pressure in your belly that makes you work against my hand…is it me you want, sweet Sookie? Is it _me_ you need or would _anyone_ do?"

"Only… (Oh) you, Eric! Only you!" He sped up his movements needing her to break at his touch. Needing to break her as she had him today. A moment later she did. He fell to his knees and buried his face between her legs sucking at her nub making her scream again. Only his hands on her hips kept her standing as he licked and sucked her until she was a quivering mass of emotion.

"Eric! Please…I can't! It feels like I'm dying from need of you!"

Rising from her feet, water cascading off him like Poseidon himself, he ripped away his clothing and picked her up so fast she couldn't follow his movements. Her back met the wall of the alcove, his hands holding her there while he pressed into her slick center. "Tell me again," his deep voice in her ear as he thrust deeply into her. "Tell me again that you are mine, Sookie." Her arms came around his neck, soft grunts of pleasure and satisfaction coming from deep inside her each time he thrust his hips.

When she didn't answer fast enough he took a nipple into his mouth. Her head fell back and he felt her walls flutter around his shaft. "Tell me," he commanded her when he released her swollen nipple, his hips rocking into her faster and harder as he commands echoed on the walls with her screams of pleasure.

She clung to him, her legs around his flexing hips, and her mouth on his as he swallowed her passionate sounds in lieu of the words he wanted. Tearing his mouth from hers he pressed his lips to her ear. "Give yourself to me, Sookie. Give me everything," with a strangled cry from somewhere between ecstasy and insanity she said his name just as her body squeezed his orgasm from him. Her eyes rolled back in her head as he came hard inside her, meeting some instinctive primal need that was as new to him as it was to her.

Moving to a nearby alcove seat in the shower he kept their bodies joined while he rocked her gently in his arms, kissing her shoulder softly from time to time. He thought she was asleep until she spoke. "That was amazing, Eric." She turned, rubbing her face on him as met his eyes, hers barely open she was so relaxed from the pleasure they had just shared. He felt much as he had before, suspended over a chasm that was pulling at him. He held on tighter to Sookie, believing she could save him from falling. "Tell me, baby. What's wrong?"

"I read your letters. I know what you do. I've just never _seen_ it before. You've never been _mine_ before. I thought…I thought that if I meant as much to you as you do me…that if I could know that…then I wouldn't be in this all alone! It's…this feeling I have for you, Sookie, it's so big that I can't see or think my way around it. If you had died today…I felt like I would have died with you. Why did I come here for you to risk everything like that?"

"But I didn't die, baby," she soothed him, bringing her hands up to his head so they could thread through his wet hair. "I'm right here. Can't you feel me?" She flexed on him still buried inside her and felt him grow harder. "I know how hard it can be to pour your heart out and not get anything in return." His face grimaced as his guilt came back with biting teeth of regret for his silence over so many years. "No, listen," her hands came to his face waiting until he looked her in the eye. "I know how big this feeling is between us. My eyes opened wider every year since I was eight.

"Then I wanted to run and play with you all day, every day. As time passed, the feeling grew and changed. When I had a first awkward breathless kiss to give it was only your face I saw. When I was confronted with the needs of a mature female body it was only you I could imagine taking away the need I felt. It was only your touch I craved. I have walked the world Eric Northman and met many people. You are the only one who has ever mattered to me. You are not alone, Eric. I am always with you, even when you can't see me or touch me I am always with you."

"Sookie," he moaned her words reassuring him, catching him, holding him safe like he needed to feel. His body rocked into hers gently making her eyes close at the sensation of pressing so deeply into the center of her. "My sweet Sookie."

"Always with you," she said again as she kissed him to seal her vow. His hands came down to her hips pressing her down as he rocked up. "Always," she whispered again as she trembled in his arms.

"Always," he said as he pressed his face into her neck and worked toward his release inside her. It wasn't too big anymore, not with the two of them there together.

She dressed him first, wringing the water from his toga before tying it around his slim muscular hips. She placed a soft kiss on his chest. "If I had known what was under that stodgy old suit that day in your office I would have tried harder to get you naked and have my way with you." He chuckled.

"This is result of working a fishing boat, so it wasn't there then."

"But _you_ were there. I wish I had held onto my faith a little longer and tried harder. I was only teasing, baby. What you look like doesn't matter to me, it's the man and his heart that I hold above all others." The look in his eyes at her words was so intense that she had to look away. It left her feeling to naked under his gaze, as though he could touch a part of her that she could barely look at herself.

"No regrets for the past, my sweet Sookie. It led us here. There is no better place to be." He kissed her then with a tenderness that made her want to weep, the emotion he caused in her was too big to be contained and she had to let it go in tears of joy. All those years, all those steps to get here. He was right, there was no better place to be.

When the kiss ended she looked down and saw a small round stone on the floor of the alcove. "What's this?" she asked handing it to him. Before he could answer they were interrupted.

"Sookie? What keeps you?"

"King Minos!" Sookie exclaimed falling to her knees in front the King beside Eric. Eric saw Minos' lustful gaze on Sookie and immediately reached for her clothing to hold in front of her before taking a knee to the great King as well.

Sookie had pointed the King out at the wrestling earlier that day but he had been on the other side of the arena and seated. This was Eric's first look at the monarch outside the dream where he had made his interest in Sookie quite plain. Eric bowed his head, but not before he saw the King appraise him not as a subject but as a man he was in competition with.

By comparison Eric was over a foot taller, his frame lithe and graceful whereas the King was muscled and compact. Eric's hair was blond like Sookie's, Minos had dark hair and eyes. They were both attractive, but Eric had something that the King plainly wanted for his own, something that he could take if the mood struck him and if Eric opposed him in anyway it would result in his death.

"The Leapers have returned to the palace for a small celebration before we retire for the evening in anticipation of tomorrow's great banquet. They said that you had been delayed. Is all well?"

"Very well, my King. May I present my husband, Eric?"

"Ah, my loyal subject, Eric, arrived in Knossos at last." Minos took a step closer to them. "Rise that I may see your face, Eric." Slowly Eric stood looking at the King. Remembering Sookie's dream words and how she had evaded him by playing to his ego over his manly desires he tried the same route.

"Great King Minos, I am your humble servant who sings your praises as a wise and generous King to all who have ears." In truth he had never said a word about Minos, but was willing to do whatever it took to his love safe from the King's bed. He actually saw Minos puff up at his words of praise.

"Your wife has told me of your words and that you consider me an honorable King."

"Most honorable, King Minos." He didn't like where this was going.

"It is only that honor that has kept your wife from my bed." And there it was. No more cat and mouse.

"You prove yourself in your every action and deed, great Minos," Eric said thinking quickly. Sookie was still kneeling beside him but her watchful gaze was on them both ready to intercede if needed. He knew then that if it came down to his life or her taking Minos bed that she would sacrifice herself for him.

"And as a King do I need to prove myself?"

"No, great King that is what makes it and you so unique and wonderful that I honor you with my every word." For a moment he thought how pleased Appius would be with this show. He felt a small bloom of appreciation for his hard teachings. Perhaps Sookie wasn't the only one who had prepared for this her entire life.

Minos stared at him long and hard, knowing that he had just been outmaneuvered but unwilling to let Eric and Sookie see it on his face. "Sookie," he said, still looking at Eric. He extended a hand toward her. "You will come now, join me and the others in wine and celebration before returning to your husband's side."

"As you wish, my King," she said rising and dressing quickly. "See you back at the house?" Eric nodded hating with every fiber of his being that she was about to walk away with the King, but unable to do anything. She paused a moment, reaching up with her free hand to touch his face. "Always," she said again, echoing their pledge from earlier. He nodded to show his understand and forced himself to remain still until they were gone. Taking a caning from Appius had been easier.

"This Eric, he is worthy of you?" Minos asked as they walked back to the palace.

"In every way."

"And if he were no more?"

"There would never be another for me." Her words were steel lined in velvet, but Minos was the King of Crete. He could find a way to get what he wanted and still keep his honor intact. He smiled and changed the subject praising her for her performance today. It would be important to keep her at ease for the next few hours.


	9. Monsters In The Dark

1\. Monsters In The Dark

Eric's head was spinning with images of bull leaping, of Sookie in his arms, the feel of her around his body, his possessive actions toward her, her vows to him and her sweet words of what he meant to her. In the space of a second he was out over that cliff again and then safe in her arms and in body as she loved him. It was too much. He needed to sit down. Finding a wall to rest on he sat and just let his mind tumble through the images as he heart pounded from the emotions he felt.

 _Did you ever think this would be your life? In all the dull painful hours in Appius' office? Did you ever think you would be here and feeling all this?_

 _No, not for a second, but I wouldn't change anything!_

Well, maybe he would change Minos' attraction to Sookie. That was a danger that neither of them needed. Still, at the feast tomorrow they would find The Pythia and tell her the message from the vampire at the ruins. Then what?

He realized for the first time he had no idea.

If it was an explosion in 2005 at Rhodes that caused all this, what would happen if that event was changed? Then…they would never have come here! This would never have happened! He would never have told her he loved her, never have felt her touch, her kiss beyond that horrible day in his office.

Despair filled him. He had been so afraid of her leaving him that it never occurred to him that they would lose this time together when all was put right again! He needed Sookie! He came up off the wall to start back to the palace. This was too important, it couldn't wait.

He barely made it two steps before he felt a sharp blow to the back of his head and then everything went dark.

The first thing he noticed was the smell. Rotted flesh and feces filled his nostrils. His stomach rolled over. The second thing he noticed was the pounding in his head. It beat in the rhythm of his heart. He made a sound half way between a grunt and groan when he opened his eyes and found that he was in a dark dank place. He was stretched out so that his feet rested on one wall and his head the other, so immediately he knew the width of this space. Looking up he could not see the ceiling. Looking to his right and then his left he saw flickering torches in the distance on both sides.

 _Where the hell am I?_

Turning over and rolling to his feet, he groaned again, dragging himself up and then resting on the wall while his head calmed back down from his efforts. Trying to gather his wits he listened.

Water was running behind the wall he was leaning on. The sewer? Underneath the city? Looking down the corridor first right and then left again he see no appreciable difference between the two. Which way? He pushed himself off the wall and meant to move when the little round rock that Calisto had given him fell out of his waistband making a loud plop on the floor for such a small rock. Immediately, it rolled to the left and kept going down the corridor.

 _Bacchus said you would need this soon_ , she had told him. Slowly, he started to move after it before he lost it in the dim light. It kept moving slowly in front of him as if it knew where he was going even if he did not. Despite its slow speed he was pressed to keep up with it at times leaning on the wall heavily panting in his efforts before pressing on until he could see it again. Sometimes he had to stop and listen for the small sounds it made as it moved ahead of him, then he would hurry to catch up to it again.

Keeping up with the rock was all he could manage in addition to fighting the urge to sit down and rest. In his mind he saw flashes of Sookie, snippets of her face as she looked at him, talked to him since he had arrived in Knossos two day before.

 _Had it really only been two days?_

So much had happened since then. Before he could go deeper into his thoughts the rock would slip from his sight and pull him on. Part of him wondered if she was all right or if something had happened to her as well. Those thoughts made him press on as well. He had to know if she was well.

Suddenly the rock stopped and he panicked. He got down and started sweeping the floor to find it with his hands. His thoughts were becoming clearer now and a memory of Sookie kept playing over and over.

 _This city was designed by Daedalus himself, as was the Labyrinth that is beneath it. I met him once, at the palace. He was there to consult with Minos and the Leapers had been summoned to attend the function as well. I learned that day about the architectural intents in design and how everything the he builds is set to compliment the land it rests on. The city and the Labyrinth run downhill, its entrances at the bottom of the hill that Knossos sits atop…_

Where was that rock? He was searching as his mind got hung in this loop.

 _The city and the Labyrinth run downhill, its entrances at the bottom of the hill that Knossos sits atop…_

Oh, Sookie what if I never see you again? Stop it! You will see her again. You will get out of this and see her again!

I don't even know where I am, he told himself feeling the despair settle into his tired aching bones.

 _The city and the Labyrinth run downhill, its entrances at the bottom of the hill that Knossos sits atop…_

Where is that rock? He was frantic now, on the verge of losing his composure as the senseless thoughts that had been looping in his brain finally started to make sense. His hand brushed the stone and he reached for it holding it tightly to his chest as he fully realized what he had been working to accept.

 _…_ _the Labyrinth run downhill, its entrances at the bottom of the hill that Knossos sits atop…_

As if to confirm his realization a terrifying roar rang through the passage he was kneeling in. It sounded like a bull, an angry bull, a hungry bull. It sounded like the Minotaur. He held the stone tighter and closed his eyes praying to open them and find himself someplace other than The Labyrinth beneath the city.

He was still there when he opened them and the roaring was coming closer. His hands shaking the little stone fell out and started to roll again.

 _The city and the Labyrinth run downhill, its entrances at the bottom of the hill that Knossos sits atop…_

 _Bacchus said you would need this soon._

The stone was rolling downhill toward the entrance! All he had to do was follow it! A burst of adrenaline made the ache in his head subside enough to get up and move behind the stone. The hungry roaring sounds coming closer he prayed for the stone to roll faster. Sometimes it got stuck and he had to get down and find it in the near dark to set it on its path once more. At times the roaring was so close he could almost feel the Minotaur's hot breath on his neck, others it was so far away he could barely hear it at all.

 _Glad I am not the only one lost_ , Eric thought trying to stay as quiet and move as quickly as possible. Instinct told him that the Minotaur would be attracted by sound. For hours or days he stumbled in the dark, rescuing the stone from getting stuck in crevices and along the corridor. It seemed as though it would never end. He made himself stay focused on the moment and did not wonder what would happen when he got to the entrance that would surely be locked and guarded. Those thoughts made his legs weak and encouraged him to sit down and give up. He would take turns thinking of holding Sookie again and then thinking of keeping up with the rock that was still rolling in front of him to keep him going.

 _I shouldn't have been so demanding with her after the leaping_ , he thought, his tired mind wandering after he had been in the dark so long he was starting to think he would never see the sky again. _She's right life is filled with dangers that we never see coming. I certainly never planned to wind up here!_ The thought that she might be as anxious as he had been earlier when she was in the arena with the bull tore at his heart. He would have done anything to spare her from feeling that way.

"I'll explain better, my love. I will make it up to you, Sookie. I swear it!" In his dehydration and wounded state he had not realized he had spoken aloud until he heard the roars growing closer. The Minotaur had heard him. Panic seized him as this monster came closer. Scrambling to pick up the rock his hand sank into something soft and slimy. A moment later the smell of something rotten assailed his nostrils.

He pulled back and tried to shake it off his hand. Halfway through wiping his hand on the floor the stench became too much. His stomach rolled over, but he forced himself to calm. Inspiration struck him then that perhaps he could hide his smell in the rotten matter on the floor. It might buy him a few precious seconds if the creature found him before he found the door.

Holding his breath he smeared himself in whatever it was on the floor. He took his mind away from where he was and what he was doing thinking of Sookie in the market square the day before as she had shown him all the delights of the festival. When he was done he put the rock back on the floor and followed it again, all the time listening to the sounds of the creature coming closer to him.

The rock stopped again in front of a crack in the Labyrinth's wall. With the creature nearly upon him he scooped up the rock and pressed his long frame into the crack, trying to keep his breathing as shallow and quiet as possible. He was sure the sound of his pounding heart would give him away, at least he was until the creature came into view. When he got his first look at the mythical Minotaur he was pretty sure his heart stopped beating all together.

The books he had read on the steamer told him that according to legend after he ascended the throne of the island of Crete, Minos competed with his brothers to rule. Minos prayed to Poseidon, the sea god, to send him a snow-white bull, as a sign of support. He was to kill the bull to show honor to the deity, but decided to keep it instead because of its beauty.

Minos had thought Poseidon would not care if he kept the white bull and sacrificed one of his own. To punish Minos' arrogance, Poseidon made Pasiphaë, Minos' wife, fall deeply in love with the bull. Pasiphaë had commissioned Daedalus make a hollow wooden cow, and climbed inside it in order to mate with the white bull. The offspring of that wretched union was the monstrous Minotaur.

The creature that passed only several feet from his hiding place seemed unlikely to have been born of woman. It was at least nine feet tall, its head and shoulders calling to mind the sacrificial bull that Sookie had killed in the arena. Its body was in the shape of a man having two arms and legs but its muscles were so large and thick that it was almost in its own way when it moved. It stopped right in front of Eric and turned its large head sniffing the air for its prey.

The dim light caught its milky white eyes. _It's blind,_ Eric thought and wanted to sigh in relief when he realized that silence and scent were indeed his friends when it came to evading this creature. There was no way to fight it without a weapon, the long horns would skewer him in seconds.

Whether born of man or god it was here and it was real! If he had not been so exhausted and terrified then he might have felt some sense of elation. He was sure his Sookie would no matter her state to see something with her own eyes that had been lost to the mists of time and relegated to the status of mere myth. Her bravery, unbending strength and insatiable curiosity were what made her so fascinating to him. The feeling she brought to him warmed and strengthened him even here.

After a while, hard to say how long in the stifling stinking dark the creature moved on. Eric remained hidden until he could no longer hear the creature then he slipped out and placed the rock on the ground again, beginning again his quest for the entrance to the Labyrinth. The stone was moving faster now and he was having trouble keeping up with it. He fell several times in an effort to not let it slip from his sight, the last time coming down hard hitting his head again. He tried to rise but did not have the strength. He knew he was going to die here under the city.

Accepting his fate and giving up the fight allowed his tired mind to realize who had placed him here.

Minos.

 _Oh, Sookie, I am so sorry,_ he mourned as the thought of what would happen to her now that he was out of the way. _I hope you can forgive me, my love, for failing you after all._

There was a light.

"Oh, God!" There was Sookie.

"He's alive!" There was a man he didn't recognize.

"I've got him." There was Sam.

"Let me help," the unknown man said.

"Oh, baby," Sookie touched his brow.

"We must hurry! The drug will wear off soon and the guards will be after us!"

He felt himself float away in the arms of those he loved and those he didn't know.

His eyes opened slowly. "Drink some water, Eric." Sookie's voice was soft and soothing as she held his head. The water was cool and refreshing. He drank long and deep before she took the cup away and laid his head back down. He reached for her, taking her hand in his. Touching her made him feel stronger already.

"I thought I had lost you, baby." She was touching his face now, assuring herself that he was indeed all right.

"Never," he told her, his eyes closed because it took more strength than he had to keep them open.

"Will he be all right?" Sam asked from nearby.

"Yes, I believe so," Sookie assured him.

"Call on me if you have need of anything."

Sometime later he felt Sookie wash him of the residue from his adventures in the Labyrinth. He tried to speak but his lips wouldn't cooperate, properly. He passed out again.

When Eric awoke later he found Sookie wrapped around him in her narrow bed. His slight movements brought her immediately awake. He felt a cup at his lips and more cool water sliding down his throat. When she took the cup away, she got up and returned with some bread and cheese. He was starving, and made short work of them. Finally he sat up on the side of the bed and moved to the corner to relieve himself. He made it back to the bed but was grateful that he had to go no further. He lay back down at her urging with her tucked to his side again.

"Minos put you in The Labyrinth," she said in the quietness of the house. It must be very late because there was no other sound to be heard other than her voice. It created the illusion that they were the only two people in the world.

"Did he say that?" She scoffed.

"Everything but. He could hardly own it and play the noble man his ego demands." She told him of their conversation on the way to the palace and how she had felt something was wrong. When she finally made it home and found him missing she suspected the worst. She had gone to Sam and together they had gone to Daedalus for help getting into The Labyrinth. They had barely entered it when they found him in the corridor.

"Minos has a secret entrance in the palace far from where we found you, Eric. How did you come so far in the dark alone?"

"Calisto gave me a gift from Bacchus. A small round stone. I remembered you said the entrance was downhill so I followed the stone as far as I could." She mulled that over a bit. "I think that means that in some way Bacchus must be real. The Minotaur sure is!"

"You saw it?" she asked, rising to look at his face.

"Up close. It was terrifying." He told her of his experiences and instead of the awe and joy he expected from his experience he watched her face grow dark with fury.

"Damn him for doing this to you! To us!"

"Damn who? Minos?"

"Who else? He thought if you were gone that he could claim me as his and not lose his honor!"

"I'm tougher than that. I survived Appius. Minos is a lightweight next to him."

"This is not funny Eric Northman!"

"Who the hell is laughing Sookie Stackhouse?"

"You are! You're making light of what happened today. Who does he think he is?"

"The King of Crete, Sookie. That is who he thinks he is. No one denies him what he wants. He may have more power than Appius did, more men at his beck and call but he is not the first entitled man I have dealt with and he probably won't be the last."

"How can you be so calm about the fact that he almost had you killed?"

"Because he didn't succeed. Now he has tipped his hand and we have the advantage. Next time he won't catch me so unaware."

"How did he this time?"

"My head was full of what had happened. Seeing you bull leaping, what happened between us after and I had just realized…" he stopped remembering his thoughts of losing her if they returned.

"Realized what?"

"That if we set time right then none of this, Crete, me and you, this," he said gesturing them sharing a bed, "None of this will have happened. I was on my way back to the palace to talk to you about it when they took me unaware." Her eyes were round in fear as his words sank in.

"Never have happened?" she repeated, moving closer to him, placing her arms around his aching body.

"No, we will be back to where we were before this. Me in New York mourning the loss of you and you in Crete on a dig hating me."

"I never hated you, Eric."

"Yeah, but my actions drove such a wedge between us that you didn't tell me good bye before you left and you didn't send me the monthly telegrams anymore." She didn't say anything to that, only burying her face further into his chest. "If you never disappear then I don't change, Sookie. I remain the same coward who was unworthy of your affections."

"No," she said, still hiding her face in denial of words. He held her closer, well aware that this might be the last time he ever got to feel her beside him like this. If Minos didn't kill him then returning to their own time would likely leave them without their memories of what had happened here. Either way, his time with Sookie was limited. He was surprised to find out that he could only regret the ending and not a moment of the journey. "We could just stay here," she said, raising a hopeful face to look at him.

"There is the King to consider." Her face twisted in anger again then cleared.

"You are right. I would rather have you safe and alive in a world where I never knew your love than dead here where I have only your memory." He kissed her brave face and pretended that he didn't find either of those choices as unacceptable as she did.

"Rest now, my sweet Sookie. I haven't given up yet. Love may win the day after all if we just believe." He wiped her silent tears tenderly before she sniffed and put her head back on his chest exhaustion taking them both away soon after.


	10. The Oracle

Eric dreamed that he was seated between Minos and Bacchus at the feast that was supposed to happen tomorrow night. On his left Minos was sharpening a knife that might be a sword with adequacy issues. On his right Bacchus was drinking wine and flirting with the room.

Eric looked around for Sookie and saw her off in the corner with Pythia speaking in hushed tones. "You better hope this works," Bacchus whispered in his ear. "You need to get the hell out of here."

"Tell me about it." Eric looked at the King again. Minos grinned showing a mouth of long sharp teeth as he drew his finger across his throat. The message was very twentieth century and very easy to understand. Eric was a dead man if he stayed in Knossos.

"Seriously, you don't belong here. You need to get hell out before you screw things up for me."

"How would I do that?" Bacchus sighed turning to look at Eric now, his gaze appreciative in a way that he had had only ever seen in Sookie's eyes before. It made him very uncomfortable.

"You are only beginning to suspect this about yourself but inside you, fighting to get out is one of the most ruthless and vicious creatures the world has ever seen. Particularly when someone does harm to that one." Bacchus nodded to Sookie who was still talking to Pythia. "The two of you are twisted through the stars. Where there is one there is the other soon after. Destiny." Bacchus made a spinning motion with his hand. "Wheel of Fate, whatever. The point is, if you don't get back to where you belong, then it's going to go bad here. If Minos hurts her while you live I wouldn't be surprised if you burned this entire city to the ground."

"This city is made of stone."

"That really wouldn't stop you if he makes you angry enough. The same goes for her if something happens to you. Knowing what _she_ is capable of is why I sent you the stone." Eric felt the truth of the words Bacchus was saying and it made him feel…pleased. He knew he should feel differently but he also know that if anyone hurt Sookie he would indeed make them very, very sorry for their actions. He felt a slow cold smile spread over his face as he looked at Minos again.

Minos who had been sawing his neck with his finger again suddenly stopped smiling. Eric leaned closer to him and felt something slide down from his gums. Running his tongue over them he realized now he had fangs, too. His smile grew larger. "All the better to eat you with," he said to Minos with a wink. Bacchus sighed beside him.

"Stop that and listen to me! You need to get the hell out of here before you mess things up for me! I will not be kind if you interrupt the path that is set to bring Ariadne to me and you already owe me one!" Right, the stone Calisto had given him.

"Thank you for sending me the stone." Eric remembered to be gracious for a moment in his dream and then he forgot. "You are supposed to take Calisto to wife and now you are after Ariadne. Why do you need so many wives?"

"Calisto is special, that is true. She and I will have a long relationship where I stand her up repeatedly but she never gives up on me. Ariadne though, that is the woman that I long to have beside me for all times."

"Doesn't seem fair to Calisto."

"Who ever said it was fair? She wants me and I want Ariadne. Legends are built on such legs as this." So were other things but it seemed wrong to say to someone who had helped him as Bacchus had in The Labyrinth.

"Will she remember me when we get out of here?"

"Being in the heart of a temporal flux usually means that you are part of it and outside the rules that govern those affected by it."

"Huh?" Bacchus rolled his eyes.

"Just get the hell out of here!"

Eric jerked awake with Bacchus' warning ringing in his ears. _Today is my last day here with Sookie,_ was the first thought that crossed his mind. _Today could be my last day with Sookie._ He pulled her tighter as the very thought crossed his mind, as though that could keep them together across time and space.

"Can't…breathe," she mumbled to his chest, pushing against him so she could get some air. He loosened his grip, but kept his hands on her as he covered her face in shower of kisses. She was giggling and squirming against him after the first dozen. After they settled he asked her what she would like to do today. "Stay here and be with you," she told her, bringing her hand to his face and pulling him down for a soft kiss on his lips.

They spent the day in bed twined together sometimes in laughter, sometimes in passion, always in love. "You mean the whole time I was writing to you, you were writing me back?" she asked him awe in her eyes as he told her all his secrets one by one.

"Yes, every day. Endless words that poured out from the hole in my heart made by missing you." He tucked her hair behind her ear and touched her face softly. "That first day when you came in and introduced yourself me I felt like such an idiot."

"No!" she said, "You were so handsome and so serious that day. I just wanted to pull you up and go start a game of tag in the street."

"I feel like we have been playing tag for years, so that works," he told her smiling.

"You came a long way to catch me."

"Totally worth the trip," he said tickling her, intoxicated by the sound of her laughter in the small room. When they settled again he told her of his first day on Sam's boat. "I was so sore and sunburned I thought I was dying. I fell in a heap and couldn't move. I woke up to Sam rubbing olive oil on my burns. At first I thought he was attacking me. When I moved to fight him off it hurt so bad that for a moment I was hoping he planned to kill me." She laughed again at his exaggerated story of woe.

"The next day was even worse. I was so soft from sitting behind that desk my whole life. I had rope burns on my hands and every muscle I had ached. I think I might have jumped overboard if on the second night Sam hadn't asked me why I was doing this.

"I had never spoken about you, about my feelings for you to anyone out loud. Once I got started I couldn't stop. I went on for hours until Sam finally told me that he was going to gag me if I didn't shut up and let him get some sleep." He smiled then his eyes unfocused and lost in the past.

"From that night on I just thought of you, of seeing you, of telling you all the things I should have told you so very long ago. The days passed, the pain lessened and I changed into the man you see here before you." He looked at her again. "Everything I am is because of you Sookie Stackhouse, because on that day so long ago you came into my world with your blue bow and your heart that believed in me.

"I loved your letters, Sookie. You had never seen mine, but when I read yours it felt like we had been talking to each other after all from one side of the world to the other. It felt like we had been as connected in the real world as we had been in my mind and in my heart for all those years."

It was a perfect day, and like all perfect things it ended far too soon.

When it was time to dress for the banquet they both did so with mixed emotions. She put on the dress he had bought her the day of the festival and she gave him a gift that she had gotten on the way back from the palace before she knew he was missing. It was a toga in matching cranberry red with a wide black belt and black shoulder armor for his left arm that ended in a wide leather brace that covered his right arm from wrist to elbow. The shoulder armor tied around his bicep crossing his chest to fasten under his left arm.

She stood back to appraise her handiwork. "I wanted everyone to know that we were together and you were mine. Seeing you like this now, I fear I will only have made them want to take you from me."

"I was thinking the same thing about this dress. I wanted to see you in, not anyone else."

"This is what all the girls are wearing in 1500BC."

"Not like you do."

"Do you miss the blue ribbon in my hair?"

"You have hair?" he teased in a dreamy tone as he looked at her breasts. She couldn't help but laugh.

"Just for that I won't let you rouge my nipples."

"Now there's is a sentence I never thought I would hear from you."

"Which is why you should mourn losing the opportunity." She turned then before he could see her smile and moved toward the little table where she kept her makeup. Kohl for her eyes and rouge for her cheeks, lips and breasts. A moment later she felt him behind her. His arms slipped around her from behind and he placed a soft kiss on her shoulder.

"Have I been a good husband, Sookie? For this brief time we had in this strange place, did I please you in all the ways a good husband should for his beloved wife?" She bit her lip as her vision blurred with tears that she refused to let fall.

"The best," she told him, her voice cracking only a little as she pressed her back to his chest and rested her hands over his arms at her waist. "And what of me, did I please you, husband?"

"In every precious moment, my sweet Sookie." Sobbing she turned in his arms pulling his head down to hers.

"I can't bear to lose you, Eric!" He kissed her then. It was the only thing he could say about something that was completely beyond their control.

They walked hand in hand to the banquet and entered as quietly as possible. They were seated with the other Leapers at a table close to the front. Eric's height made him hard to miss and it was easy to tell when Minos spotted them because the entire room feel silent. Their plan had been to wait for an opportunity to speak with The Oracle and pass on the message that Eric had been given.

When the room fell silent they looked around to find Minos had risen to his feet, his face a study in shock and that The Oracle of Delphi was seated at his right hand. Sookie bowed gracefully to the King, her face carefully blank. Eric did the same and then they waited for Minos to either charge them calling for his guard or take his seat again. Thankfully, he sat back down allowing them and the rest of the banqueters to do the same. Slowly the buzz of conversation throughout the room resumed.

"I will distract Minos while you talk to The Oracle."

"No!" he whispered back to her. "It's not safe for you."

"If this works like we need it to then it won't matter. We will be gone." Eric looked for an argument he could use, another way he could get The Oracle alone but came up with nothing. When she rose he caught her hand and looked at her as though he might never see her again.

"I love you, Sookie Stackhouse. I will remember you!"

"Always," she told him and then turned away before he saw her tears. She pushed them back and by the time she reached Minos' table her head was high and her smile was wide. Not a soul present would have guessed that her heart was breaking or that she was contemplating regicide as she knelt before Minos.

Eric's stomach knotted along with his fists when he watched the King rise and leave with Sookie. Moving quickly to The Oracle he knelt beside her chair. "Might I have a word, Oracle?" She turned to face him. For just a moment he saw milky white eyes and thin hair overlay her younger face and the words that he had been told to speak came spilling out of lips as if compelled _._

 _"'_ _The telepath must find the bomb before it goes off in Rhodes in 2005. When she presents herself to you at the trial set her on the right path.'"_

The Oracle's face showed confusion and then fear when she got her first good look at the man out of time. Something his in aura was jagged and out of place. She touched his face then and saw more than she had ever dreamed she would see.

His life in the twentieth century, his journey to Greece and then to the past. What had been static and purple to him was easily seen by her if not easily comprehended. So many roads, so much time. It was almost too much for her mind to take, but it was real and she understood what would happen to him, to them and that she could and would fix it in 3500 years.

People think that time is a straight line but they are wrong. What has happened is happening will happen, all at the same time. The moment she _decided_ to change 2005 it _happened_ in the time stream and the effect was immediate.

Eric blinked and he as in Crete with The Oracle of Delphi.

He blinked again and he was back in Appius' house his bags packed and ready to go after Sookie in Greece.

He had no idea where or when Sookie was, but he remembered her and their time. It was a bittersweet feeling to be here without her knowing that their time had not been lost in their efforts to set things right. He ran from the house, nearly trampling Appius on his way to the door. He didn't slow down or explain why he was in such rush.

 ** _24 hours later, Rhodes, 1932_**

Sookie opened her very first telegram from Eric Northman. Her heart was pounding and her mouth was dry. At first her hands were shaking so bad she couldn't read the words, then she did and her eyes blurred with tears again disrupting her sight of the precious few words that answered every question that had burned in her since her return from Knossos.

 ** _Sookie STOP_**

 ** _Wait for me in Rhodes STOP_**

 ** _I am coming for you my wife STOP_**

 ** _I love you always I will never STOP_**

 ** _Eric_**


	11. Epilogue

11\. Epilogue

 ** _Rhodes, 1939_**

"Samuel Earl Northman, get yourself back here this instant!" Sookie called out to her unruly son as he ran through the ruins she had excavated nearly a decade before.

"Was it here that you saw the vampire, Father?" Eric chuckled.

"Right over there," he pointed and smiled as Sam sprinted off again. If he knew his son he was hoping to find the creature still there so he could question her endlessly about the story as he did his parents.

"Sam!" Sookie called out again.

"Let him go," Eric told her, pulling her close and kissing her softly. "He wants to explore the place he's been hearing about since he was in the cradle."

"He's like his mother that way."

"A little bit," he kissed her again. When he felt her relax against him he moved to her neck. "You think later you might let me rouge your nipples?" She giggled.

"You wish."

"I do, I wish it very much." Her arms went around his neck. She squealed when he spun her around her feet leaving the ground.

"Oh, I love you!" she called out laughing as she had long ago when he tickled her in another time, in another life.

"Good, because I love you, too." He set her down, kissing the top of her head before taking her hand and heading in the direction of Sam's voice calling out to them.

"You gotta see this!"

~The End~


End file.
